[ale] [OT] Ethics of munging USER AGENT without consent

[Fulton Green]

As a history lesson aside, MSFT did, in fact, muck the USER_AGENT value
when they came out with IE 1.0 (which was actually a derivative of
Spyglass at that time) so that, ironically, it would fool web servers into
thinking it was Netscape.  Remember, some websites back then were using
"advanced" HTML tags such as tables, frames, flashing text, etc., that
were only available in Netscape.  But M$ mucked up the values enough such
that later server platforms would check for "MSIE x.y" in one of the
subfields and take adverse action if it wasn't present.  Thus, all the
browser hacks to make Mozilla and Opera emulate MSIE emulating Netscape.

(sigh)

Engineering-wise, it's a bad idea; several websites now switch CSS styles
based on how the browser ID's itself, and the last thing you want to be
doing is explaining to your users why website text looks all jumbled up
and cramped or chopped off.  There's also the whole JavaScript
incompatibility between MSIE and NS; see right below.

Ethics-wise, it's also bad, but not for the reasons you've stated: if a
mission-critical website, such as a stock trading engine, serves up
Mozilla- or Netscape-compatible JavaScript code that breaks in MSIE, and
that code just happens to prevent your user from hitting the "Buy" or
"Sell" button, you will have potentially caused financial damage to that
user, and you would be held liable.

I know it's frustrating that several websites have the "browser==MSIE"
check, but artifically inflating browser stats ain't the answer, unless
you're the only person affected (in which case, you're naturally inflating
browser stats :).

Anyone remember around this time last year when someone was kind enough to
post a job opening for a company, but its website locked out Mozilla?
After a massive flamefest on the list, someone wrote a polite letter to
their sysadmin, and the next day it was working w/Mozilla.

And if peaceful tactics like that don't do the job, then perhaps the
millions of Mac users soon to be using Safari, or potentially several
million Netscape-using AOL users in the future, will be enough to convince
the backwards-thinking web developers.  And let's not forget about the
new-gen wireless handsets that can browse the web; it'd be interesting to
know what OpenWave sends for its browser's USER_AGENT ID.

In the meantime, I'm of the opinion that a site that isn't willing to take
on Mozilla browsers isn't worth my time, no matter how supposedly cool or
critical the content may be.  Unless it's REALLY hot stuff, then I'll boot
into WinXP. <rimshot /><crash />

And in some of those cases, there probably isn't anyone around to fix
the problem.  That, to me, spells potential consulting opportunity.

Just my two blank CD-Rs' worth ...

On Wed, Jul 09, 2003 at 06:00:12PM -0400, Christopher Bergeron wrote:
> Here's an off-the-wall one for you guys - I was thinking about whipping
> up a little peice of code to automatically make every browser from my
> company look like Mozilla/5.0 (or Opera, etc. maybe randomly).  Mind
> you, I've decided against actually doing it, but the thought did cross
> my mind, so I figured I'd post it here for some ethical fodder /
> discussion.  
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