I’m not impressed by company’s mission statement, or corporate objectives, nor the market share they may have carved out for themselves. What impresses me most about a company or organization is how they treat their clients and user base. Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to experience the performance of the user support team of two IT companies; one of which I truly respect and the other, not so much.
Swisscows’ Maimed Leg
I’d been hearing some good reports about the (relatively) new private search company/service Swisscows. So, I decided to give them a try and see how their service compared to others that I come to rely upon for my Web searches (those being Start Page, Disroot SearX, and sometimes Brave). Unfortunately, when I pointed SeaMonkey to the Swisscows URL, all I would get was a blank white screen. I would briefly see the Swisscows banner, but it would quickly blank out.
If I tried another web browser, like Pale Moon for example, I would be able to see the Swisscows site just fine. There was obviously something up with the way Swisscows interacted with SeaMonkey. So, I decided to contact them about the issue I was having and ask them to possibly look into their web site’s compatibility with web browsers, like SeaMonkey.
To be honest, I’ve attempted to contact web site owners before about their site’s incompatibility with SeaMonkey (as many web site developers only write for Chromium-based web browsers these days). So, my expectations were not very high, as I wasn’t even expecting a response. But, in a few day I actually did receive a response from Swisscows. Unfortunately, it was the all too standard, “it’s not our fault, but your web browser’s”. They informed me that their search engine is “compatible with all web browsers,”so the issue must be that I’m running some plug-in or appliance with SeaMonkey that is blocking my access.
The only plug-in I use on SeaMonkey that could interfere with displaying a web page is uBlock Origin. So, theoretically, if I deactivate uBlock, I should be able to access Swisscows, right? Wrong. I also posted my experience with Swisscows on the SeaMonkey support forum. Other SeaMonkey users also reported that Swisscows was not appearing for them, with one particularly knowledgeable person identifying the one Javascript portion of the web site that was causing the issue. And sure enough, when I told uBlock to stop all Javascript code on the site (20 snippets of it apparently), I could see the home page. However, the Javascript seems essential to Swisscows search results. If they are blocked from running, no search results are displayed.
Obviously, Swisscows refused to look into the issue I was having very closely (if at all) and simply pushed off the solution to me to figure out and deal with on my own with the “it’s not us, it’s you” response. This did not give me any sort of confidence in their support staff or their ability to actually deliver what they say they do. There are much better search engines that provide both privacy and better compatibility than Swisscows.
ALT Linux Shines
Now compare this experience with the one I recently had with upgrading one of my PCs running ALT Linux. I was informed that one of the releases of ALT Linux (P9 to be exact) would soon be put into the “archives”, which meant that official system updates would soon come to an end for the branch. Although it was probable that updates would most likely continue, with the help of community at large, I was still apprehensive to continue to use the P9 branch in the new year without the direct support from the development team. So, I decided to update to P10. I also decided to use the 64 bit architecture, rather than 32 bit, as it’s been getting more difficult to find web browsers that still supported the 32 bit architecture. SeaMonkey still does, but there are times (like accessing my bank account online) that web sites demand a Chromium-based browser. Those pretty much only support the X86 architecture.
So, I proceeded to install the X86 version of ALT Linux P10 onto my Asus EeeBox. All was going good until I hit the 10% complete mark. The install abruptly stopped with a “Fatal Error” code. I tried re-downloading the install ISO and recreating the install USB, but I still got hung up at this point each and every time. My only alternative was to turn to the ALT Team for support, via their user support mailing list.
In short order, I got a response from the team and some communication going between different people in the team. In a day or two the issue was identified: the new kernel modules now require more RAM in order to boot and install properly (I’m summarizing and paraphrasing here). Obviously, my EeeBox PC just doesn’t have enough available RAM to do the job. But, was this the answer that the ALT team left me with? Not at all! They went out of their way and altered the install options of their Sisyphus (basically their working development branch) to allow the few people like me, who may still be using older hardware, to boot using an “oldinst” modifier during boot/install. And they did all of this over the weeks leading up to the Christmas/New Years holidays, no less.
From what I’m told, this option will be included in the P11 release, possibly arriving in March. So, if you’re looking for a fast, versatile, stable, easy-to-administer OS, ALT Linux continues to be your best option on both new and older hardware. They even continue to maintain an i586 branch of their OS, which I still use on my ASUS EeePC and will continue to do so, thanks to their dev. team.
To me, it is this kind of (consistent) user support that comes from the ALT Linux team that warrants trust and loyalty to the brand and their product. In both of my examples here, it’s a request from one lowly person that is having a problem and not a large group. But, one organization apparently doesn’t see the value of redirecting resources to investigate or fix the problem, while the other organization sees it as an opportunity to improve upon and make their product even better; not to mention making a simple bumpkin feel like his experience with their product matters to someone.
If I were going to pay for some sort of service between these two companies, I’m sure you’d be able to guess which one would be getting my money.