User Agent (was: Bero goes bye bye)

On Fri, 2002-09-27 at 10:15, Jef Spaleta wrote:
> On Fri, 2002-09-27 at 00:52, John wrote:
> > On Thursday 26 September 2002 22:47, Thomas Dodd wrote:
> > > And why won't mozilla work?
> > 
> > Broken website
> 
> So if its a broken website....and you know its a broken website...is it
> a good idea for a browser(any browser) to render it?  Where is the
> incentive for the webmaster at that site to ever create working
> websites?  I mean its great for you that konq can get past the errors in
> the website...but i have to wonder how the brokenness of the website is
> being fixed by konq since anything that was broken has to be
> reinterpreted and by konq and konq has to make a guess as to what what
> meant..and once you start guessing about how to deal with errors...that
> can lead to worse errors.
> 
> 
> > 
> > > Are you faking the UA in Konq?
> > I haven't tried yet, but I did find the feature.
> 
> It would be very interesting to know what UA string Konq is reporting to
> the admittedly broken website.  But i think there is another string
> websites can check...something about browser version which seems to be
> hardcoded as far as I can tell.  I found a website once that could tell
> me a whole buttload of info about my browser settings...but I can't seem
> to find that site now. Anyways a quick and easy way to see what UA you
> have is to use a one line php script on yer php enabled webserver and
> just point your browser too it..
> 
> <?php echo $HTTP_USER_AGENT; ?> 
> 
> I highly doubt konq has a feature the website is using that mozilla does
> not also provide and can not get via a plugin...so its more likely than
> not the website is deliberately only allowing in certain browsers by
> user agent strings or some other setting condition...and konq is
> probably sneaking in because its misreporting its UA as IE. And frankly
> this really sucks...because when browsers misreport their UA's like this
> it strengthens IE's position in any type of website traffic analysis. 
> So you get access to you bank...at the price of showing up in statistics
> as running an MS browser.  Can you see what konq is reporting as its
> UA?  
> 
> 
> > > Why not do the same with Mozilla (http://uabar.mozdev.org)
> > 
> > Because, while I've been through its settings many times, I don't recall 
> > seeing such a feature.
> Moz doesnt have a UA feature right in its qui settings wizard
> normally...you either have to go edit a preference file by hand...or
> grab the addon project called uabar from the mozdev.org website which
> will give you gui access to the UA changing features.
> 
> > 
> > Besides that, there's a government website important to me, and K is the only 
> > browser of the three able to handle it correctly.
> By why is that?  
> a)Is it because the rendering engine really does handle it differently
> b)is it becuase the website is broken...
> c)is it becuase the website is deliberately shutting out specific
> browsers via a UA string check?
> 
> if the reason is A...then kong gets a point for being better.
> 
> if the reason is B...konq gets half a point for being "smart" about
> dealing with broken behavior even though its not clear if konq is
> rendering the site as intented...if there are errors trying to
> reinterpret them to fix than is a fuzzy game.
> 
> if the reason is C...whether or not konq gets in is going to be becuase
> konq is blatantly lying about what application it is....no points
> awarded for liars. And you can set the other applications to lie as
> well. But browsers shouldn't have to lie to get website access....so its
> not clear if this is the best behavior especially if konq is doing it by
> default and you are showing up as IE in web site statistics...you aren't
> helping making sure that browser independent standards are used on
> websites...which would keep this kind of stuff from happening.
> 
> -jef

Here's one of many sites that will detect and display your User Agent
string.

http://www.atesto.com/mybrowser.html

-- 
Chris Kloiber