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RE: [PLUG] interesting experiment
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I remember a story a couple of weeks ago about .net and the Microsoft
pages sensing your browser identification and changing accordingly.
This from ArsTechnica:
Microsoft has launched their new look for their popular site msn.com
but not without a scandal. CNET's News.com is reporting Microsoft's
relaunched site no longer supports browsers that are not "standards
complaint." Obviously, this means only Internet Explorer will render
the page correctly.
We do identify the string from the browser, and the only issue that
we have is that the Opera browser doesn't support the latest XHTML
standard, [...] we do suggest to those users that they go download a
browser that does support the latest standards.
With Microsoft delving into web services with their .Net
infrastructure, the move towards favoring Internet Explorer would be
helpful to them. Since most Microsoft applications somehow link back
to MSN, an Internet Explorer only website could gain new users.
Windows XP incorporates MSN in many features, including the search
feature directly accessed through the Start Menu.
Although Microsoft denies the fact that it blocks any browsers except
for Opera, it most clearly does. Initial testing by Ars member Geon
shows Lynx, Mozilla, and Konqueror are all rejected by MSN. However,
when the headers in Konqueror are changed to: "Mozilla/4.0
(compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 95)" MSN happily accepts the
connection. It appears Microsoft is lying about the browsers it
blocks, as well as the real reasons behind blocking them. As we can
see from the HTML Validator, MSN is not standards complaint.
How does everyone on Ars feel about this? Is it right for Microsoft
to incorporate the use of MSN in many of their products and in the
search feature of Windows XP while requiring the use of Internet
Explorer to access it? Since we did not have a version of Netscape to
test with, have any Arsians had luck accessing MSN with Netscape
4.x/6.x? Since Microsoft's reasoning behind blocking browsers other
than Internet Explorer are not valid, due to the fact that MSN does
not validate as XHTML, Microsoft must have something else up their
sleeve.
Update: Apparently Microsoft claims they will back off and enable all
browsers to view MSN. Link
Here is the CNET link:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7655334.html?tag=mn_hd
And a link to a browser validator:
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.msn.com&charset=%28
detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline
Robert J. Razler, Esq.
Approvals Manager
Heritage Building Group, Inc.
Suite A-100
3326 Old York Road
Furlong, PA 18925
215.794.0550, ext. 117
www.heritagebuildinggroup.com
brazler@heritagebuildinggroup.com
- -----Original Message-----
From: plug-admin@lists.phillylinux.org
[mailto:plug-admin@lists.phillylinux.org] On Behalf Of William Shank
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2001 1:10 PM
To: 'plug@lists.phillylinux.org'
Subject: [PLUG] interesting experiment
using konqueror (i'm using kde2.2.2, but i don't know how much it
matters)
go to http://www.msnbc.com and observe the formatting. Now, under the
tools
menu, select Change Broswer Identification --> IE 5.5 on Windows
2000.
reobserver the formatting. notice anything?
what do you think is causing this discrepency? i'm certain the
rendering
engine isn't changed to be more compatible with IE based html. So
does this
mean that konqueror handles IE html better than other html? is the
site
sending crappy html to non-ie browsers on purpose? is this poor
quality
assurance? is there a conspiracy?
- -chris
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______________________________________________________________________
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