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Upgrade changes to service

0 Votes

Upgrade Madness makes your service less friendly, difficult, or impossible. So once again, you demand we all go out and buy new computers to use your service? We signed on with CC years ago due to simplicity and a good service. Every year or two you add bells and whistles, catering also to the iToy crowd, making it less user-friendly for professionals who use desk-top or lap-top computers. Now once more, we are shut out of the most basic of your services. Our Mac-Mini is our work-horse computer, running OS 10.6.8, which is necessary due to its ability to run other slightly older software that the post-10.6.8 Macs do not. Their newest OS actually shuts out even more user functions, with a completely new file system, and is loaded up with spy-ware and other crap that makes it risky for people to protect their privacy. They are made for children doing games or videos or music-theft on iToys, but not for professional service. We already have the most recent-possible upgrades to Firefox and Chrome, Safari, etc., but your computer people have told us to "get lost, go away". Is that the message you really want? Or must we go out and spend $3K every couple of years to upgrade to use your service, thereby demanding new software upgrades to replace the older functionality? Or, as we do now, have a tier of back-up computers so we must prep the materials on one, transfer to thumb-drive, enter into your system, which may or may not work with one upgraded computer, so as I must now do, go into another room and start up yet another computer to simply send our messages out to a 8000 member list. This is not what we paid for, and it only shows your computer programmers are really BAD at their job. They cannot imagine a streamlined service without bells and whistles as work fine with the newest software, but crash or block out anyone who isn't living in the stratosphere. Any chance you can restore functionality, rather than impolitely demanding we either spend extra time and money to get new computers to access your service, or "get lost, go away"? Not holding my breath.

3 Comments
Frankie_P
Moderator
Status changed to: Open Questions

Hi @JamesD3797 thank you for sharing this feedback. We apologize you're unable to work in your account as easily as you should. What functionality updates do you find difficult to use?

JamesD3797
Campaign Collaborator

Frankie, did you read my comment?  The point is "upgrade madness".  Your "new look" has many functionality changes, but the first is the big message telling me that my Mac computer, with top browser for this model and operating system, will no longer optimallyl work with your system.   Why is that, unless you are being bossed around by the likes of unethical Google or unethical Facebook, to optimize some kind of data sharing with them?  The idea that every couple of years we must buy a new computer for a few of our service firms, when the same "old" computer still works with our internet banking, PayPal, Amazon, and even Facebook and most other firms where security is a top concern, suggests you have programmers who are out of ignorance sacrificing functionality in the favor of bells and whistles.  For example:

1. Once a new campaign is created and ready to send, and we click on the "continue" button, the new page temporarily appears bu then vanishes all except for the top blue banner and the bottom "comment" weblink.  That happens on Firefox, in our Mac-Mini OS 10.6.8 which we MUST maintain as it contains a specific Rosetta program that allows it to run the older and very functional (better than newer versions) PowerPC programs that are a staple of our small business.  We paid thousands to get our systems working seamlessly.

2. Regarding the above, if we switch to Chrome in this same computer system, after clicking "continue" it takes you to the page for scheduling the sending, but if you then select "re-send to non-openers" it returns a blank page. 

3. Other functions are unstable, sometimes they work, sometimes only a blank page appears. I thought it might be due to your system being overwhelmed by customers, but it also happens during low-traffic times, such as midnight USA.

4. Your system has become sluggish.  I can no longer type in a new campaign fresh on your web templates, and must write them in advance and then cut-paste.  That's not such a problem, but if I want to add an image, as is usual, it requires breaking up the cut-paste, with each step causing a freeze in the program.  Without cut-paste just typing in, it hardly gets more than a few characters before halting, which previously was never the case.  So what once could be done in one hour now takes three.  And we've been using the same basic template for years.

5. I am able to finish tasks on CC only by firing up a MacAir computer running 10.10.5 - but even that isn't "new" enough for either Mozilla Firefix or Google Chrome to maintain - we now get messages from them saying "this version will no longer be supported after...xxx".  So another high-priced computer must then go on the trash heap? 

 

I've done my share of computer programming and know factually this is not necessary, unless the younger programmers haven't learned the older systems by which to maintain them.  Or it could be, CC doesn't hire the older guys and gals who know how to do that.  Whatever, we are now looking about for another service that will work for us, in the event the upgrade madness continues. 

 

Can you not offer your customers an older version of your website at login?  "Go to Classic Constant Contact" or some such? Is it maybe something simple such as a setting "CC for desk-laptops" or "CC for cell phones and pads" (or a working auto-detect) for each customer that allows for login functionality?   I keep asking, why does Amazon, ebay and Paypal work perfectly fine even on my very old PowerPC running Mac OS 10.4.11,or my Intel MacMini with OS 10.6.8, but not on a few specialized websites that always ask if we want to log-in by Google or Facebook, the two top tyrants of internet?  Can you not see, these people are pushing everyone into tracker-scanner spy-ware programs, with reduced customer functionality?  To accomplish their agendas, which today is horrid enough with their censorship, then the older software lacking such mal-ware must be pushed out of use. 

 

Cheers,

JD

Caitlin_M
Administrator
Status changed to: Closed - No Action
 
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