The browser indentification string raises its ugly head [LWN.net]

The browser indentification string raises its ugly head

Posted Oct 12, 2006 8:39 UTC (Thu) by eru (subscriber, #2753)
In reply to: apt-cache search iceweasel by drag
Parent article: Iceweasel == madness and fundamentalism?

The worst thing that is going to happen is a momentary confusion for a new Linux user when they ask: "What is this IceWeasel thing?" and some body replies: "Oh, that's just the Linux version of Firefox".

Depends on what it has on its browser identification string. The sad fact is that the emergence of "alternative" browser (Firefox) has not had any enlightening effect on the mind-set of web designers. With SeaMonkey I have come across some (fortunately rare) sites that say the browser is unsupported and recommend I use Internet Explorer or Firefox, even though Seamonkey has exactly all the same capabilities as Firefox, as far as web sites are concerned. But these idiots keep checking what the browser string says.

to post comments

The browser indentification string raises its ugly head

Posted Oct 12, 2006 9:42 UTC (Thu) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

*shrug*

I use Epiphany so I run into that time to time also. (I like how it integrates better into Gnome. Firefox always seems so 'foreign' when I use it and it doesn't work as well with other programs)

Most new users coming from Windows will probably head out to Firefox's website and install that anyways. I try to help people in forums time to time and that's a not uncommon question on how to install firefox when they already have it by default. Like they figure they want a newer version off the website directly or something like that. Haven't figured how the whole package management stuff.

It's not a uncommon problem.

Now with 'Iceweasel' new users can happily go and install the official firefox version without any namespace or directory conflicts or whatnot. It'll make a decent number of people feel comfortable. Then when they fubar it all up with a dozen extensions and whatnot then Iceweasel will be there waiting for them.

So it goes both ways.

Ironicly I ran into just such a site a few minutes ago. They were nice about it, though. They presented a page with links to 'upgrades' for Netscape, IE, Firefox, and actually a couple other browsers. But they still let me click through into the site.

The browser indentification string raises its ugly head

Posted Oct 12, 2006 13:57 UTC (Thu) by samj (guest, #7135) [Link]

I'd have thought it more sensible to refer to the rendering engine itself (ie Gecko), which would jack the 'Firefox vs IE' stats up to be a more realistic reflection of reality.

The browser indentification string raises its ugly head

Posted Oct 12, 2006 22:56 UTC (Thu) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link]

Yes, the growth of Firefox was never something that would get people to stop building web sites for a certain browser. It just makes them build web sites for two certain browsers.

But I don't think the browser identification string is the problem. Opera lets the user choose the browser identification string dynamically, with a default of IE 6. Years ago, that got me into lots of web sites that didn't want to work with me. But web sites today always know -- they tell me to "upgrade" to IE or Firefox. I suspect they're doing the smart thing and testing for the existence of a feature instead of the ID string. The web site usually lets me in anyway, but true to its word, the web site is often unusable one way or another, and I have to go to a Windows/IE system to get the job done.

So I don't think "iceweasel" in a browser identification string is going to be an issue.