This is cute

[nfotxn]

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Here's the story at yahoo and slashdot.

Comments

[mathan.livejournal.com]

Omniweb opened up the site no problem. *GRIN*

NONE of these browsers execept for IE are W3C compliant. Come on MS. Grow up!

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Yah, but you shouldn't have to change your user-agent header.

It's funny this happens the day after MS releases Windows XP. Looks like they're going for broke.

[cpratt.livejournal.com]

That statement is more true than you'd think. Obviously, Netscape 4.x is not very standard compliant, but Mozilla and Netscape 6.x also have major problems. They spent so long fucking around with the cross-platform UI they forgot to cover their butts with basic standards compliance.

As for all of the supposedly "evil" features in IE like taking you to MSN when a URL is not found, well, Netscape pioneered all that shit years ago in 4.x. Funny, when Netscape did it, no one complained, but now that Microsoft is doing it, everyone is whining like there's no tomorrow.

[mathan.livejournal.com]

I didn't change the User Agent header either.

[mathan.livejournal.com]

It's been years since I've used Netscape anyway, so I must have missed that.

I do like the page that comes up and asks you if you want to fix the URL or if you were looking for "one of the following pages.".

[bingobear25.livejournal.com]

The only reason I ever used Netscrape was because it was the only browser available. IE is simply much better in my opinion, and much more compliant.

/shrug

[sultmhoor.livejournal.com]

RFC2616, HTTP protocol 1.1 (http://www.w3c.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec14.html#sec14.43)

"... The User-Agent request-header field contains information about the user agent originating the request. This is for statistical purposes, the tracing of protocol violations, and automated recognition of user agents for the sake of tailoring responses to avoid particular user agent limitations. "

In Microsoft's view, and this has borne out through many of Microsoft's actions, this means deliberately excluding other browsers/companies/users because in their consideration, they're all inferior, whether they actually are or not. This is typical Microsoft cheeseball catch-22 -- they sell whole web suites with modules designed to be flexible for different user agents "limitations".

There is no standard for expressing user agent limitations to a server other than "de facto" matching version with experiential data on the limitations of browsers. One could also interpret the top passage as the standard being that the server talking HTTP 1.1 should work around limitations other than simply denying them access.

Tell me, is that in the spirit of interoperability and standards, deliberately excluding people who's software "doesn't meet their standard"?

[beardoc.livejournal.com]

Opera have mentioned if they change one character in the header, they work fine.

[sultmhoor.livejournal.com]

Microsoft backpedals. (http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7660935.html?tag=tp_pr) Haw, haw!


Err... was this just Microsoft flexing its muscles to prove to everyone how important they are, or are they just clueless?