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IF YOU OBJECT to the legislation currently weaving its way through the US Congress and wish to participate in the 24-hour internet blackout taking place today then we suggest you stop reading now.
But if you are one of the many millions who access the online encyclopedia on a daily basis and wish to do so today then here’s how…
Firstly, the site remains accessible through mobile devices including its own iPhone app which we’ve tested this morning. You can also access it through the Safari browser on your iPhone.
On Android devices, the Wikipedia app works as does accessing the site through the phone or tablet’s internet browser.
On the iPad however, the site appears to have smartened up. Earlier it was accessible through the Safari browser but now any search displays the page momentarily before redirecting to this page:
However, this redirection can be avoided if you very quickly press the ‘X’ button in the URL bar on your iPad’s Safari browser before it loads.
Similarly on your desktop, if you press the ‘ESC’ on your keyboard before the page has a chance to fully load you will avoid the redirection to the blackout page.
This works on Chrome, Firefox and Safari which we’ve all tried this morning. It was less successful on Internet Explorer but it may all depend on how quickly you deploy the escape button and it may also depend on how fast your internet connection is.
The Wall Street Journal reports that cached versions of Wikipedia web pages are also likely to work as are sites which pull in information from Wikipedia – such as Facebook – to populate entries.
And of course if you speak Spanish, Italian, French or other non-English languages then these Wikipedia pages are all still available. ¡Buena suerte
Are you accessing Wikipedia today? What do you think of its blackout? Do you agree? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below.
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Oh great. Now we’ll be hearing from all the armchair experts with blindingly simple solutions that the programmers didn’t think of because they were too busy eating their liga and colouring in with their crayons. I can’t wait.
@8bitplebian: I don’t eat liga when I’m coding lol
@Scorpionvenomm: Sorry, Farley’s.
They should turn it off and on again
“British Airways HAVE apologised to ITS customers…”
@Harry Whitehead: British Airways is the name of the company, singular. The airways themselves haven’t actually apologised.
If you are going to be pedantic, at least be right.
@Michael Doyle: If British Airways is to be treated as a singular noun, the correct verbal agreement would be HAS, not HAVE. Try reading it again.
@Harry Whitehead: Exactly. That’s why your original correction was incorrect.
My heads hurt.
@Neal Ireland Hello.: Err…mine wasn’t a correction. I was directly quoting the article. I used capitals to highlight the mistake. Either ‘has + its’ or ‘have + their’.
@Harry Whitehead: Lol, show how much the Irish care about the stranded passengers
@Harry Whitehead: maybe the article has been fixed since you read it first. Further down I do see “British Airways say” , which is conflicting.
@Michael Doyle: Yeah you’re right, it’s been fixed.
@Harry Whitehead: That explains it. Now we can get back to worrying about the group of passengers that are/is stranded.
@Michael Doyle: *WORRY WORRY WORRY WORRY WORRY WORRY WORRY…*
@Michael Doyle: Sorry, couldn’t resist.
I’m glad we got to the bottom of this, gentlemen.
There’s some good deals in pc world, maybe they should get down there
Resilience and redundancy plans anyone??
Probably cloud-based….
Look up its an empty sky.
go back to old system with ticketing, technology is weak, all it takes is one system to go down and the hole lot falls down, flights delayed, or cancelled no good to people travelling or missing connecting flights! then they dump you outside the airport to fend for yourself!
@Stephen Finn:
There is a whole lot wrong with that suggestion.
@Nick Allen: and yet you aren’t arsed pointing out exactly what is wrong with it.
I think you will find they were hacked, but not admitting to the fact. It seems impossible that they would have no redundancy or contingency plan if a data centre was struck by lightning.
Hugo Drax involvement I’ll warrant .
The cancellations also hit flights to Heathrow and Gatwick, I’m in Miami and two flights from here today were cancelled. The staff on the desks said nine flights from New York were also cancelled, they were still suffering a lot of computer glitches while trying to transfer us to alternative flights with different airlines. I was in a queue for about 90 minutes and it then took about another 20 minutes for the desk agent to convince his computer to book me onto a new flight.
I somehow read the hashtag as ‘competence outage’.
Word on the street is the Indians screwed up!!!!!!
have your say