Yahoo's Launch service does not work with Safari, Internet Explorer

Chalk up another mainstream site that is incompatible with the two most widely used Mac OS X Web browser: Safari 1.0 and Internet Explorer 5.2.x.

The relatively large library of music videos at launch.yahoo.com is virtually inaccessible in a native Mac OS X environment, with the company requiring Mac users to access the site with Netscape 4.5-4.79 (Classic-only versions).

MacFixIt reader Jim Carter received the following reply from Yahoo's technical support team:

"Unfortunately, at this time the only browsers which are capable of supporting LAUNCHcast for the Mac are Netscape versions 4.5-4.79.  You will need to install one of these versions (as well as the Microsoft Media Player) in order to stream your personalized LAUNCHcast station."

Unfortunately, enabling the debug menu (which can be invoked with the terminal command "defaults write com.apple. Safari Include Debug Menu 1" while Safari is not running) and setting Safari's user agent to Netscape 4.79 does nothing to resolve this issue.

We also tested launch.yahoo.com with Netscape 7 and OmniWeb 4.5 beta, obtaining similar results.

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