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Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

answers.microsoft.com

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Re: Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

#91
post #9

Unhelpful catch-all responses that don't display a shred of effort or care are the bane of my customer support experiences. Nothing hurts my opinion of a company like being brushed off like a bug.

As the former head of a customer support department, I can tell you that the most important aspect of communication with a customer is empathy. Even more than expertise, if you can demonstrate that you care about their problem and will get to the bottom of it, the encounter will most likely result in customer retention.

Similarly, has anyone else noticed the overly fake "I want to help you." Interactions with more companies lately? I mean it couldn't be more scripted if someone tried. I applaud the effort, but actual caring/empathy is meaningful, the fake, scripted attempts at it that I've been experiencing lately feel much more condescending than anything else.

Re: Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

#93
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was sarcasm

I don't think so, I think the person was utilising Hanlons razor[0]: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor

Gotta create a good name for the "never attribute to stupidity something that makes the perpetrator rich" maxim.

Re: Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

#95
post #2

They can't be throttling based on user-agent... right? I thought this was the New Microsoft. Any other hypotheses?

There can be a feature that is only tested on Windows and so is only enabled there. Does it make sense? Not really, but that can happen. Google does this everywhere, blocking features on browsers that are not Chrome.

Re: Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. People forget that they're _actively_ appearing to break it by using this UA detection. No company should _ever_ use user-agents for feature detection, because user agents themselves are screwy in so many ways [0]. Honestly, I feel like this was someone actively deciding to break the system on Linux (or any unrecognised UA). Wouldn't any reasonable developer just send back a fully-featured page if they couldn't…

You don't know when this code was written or what the original purpose was. User agent detection used to be a best practice. Onedrive for business is a mountain of legacy software going from sharepoint to groove to who knows what. This bug could be buried in some library that was written 5+ years ago. Maliciously going out of your way to not support Linux sounds like a good way to have your code review rejected.

To this day, user agent detection is the only (practical) way to avoid sending large polyfills to the 95% of clients that don't need them.

Re: Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

#97

MS giveth and MS taketh away.

MS giveth and I'd wish they'd take it away. I can't turn Onedrive off because I'm on Windows 10 Home edition (thanks to the forced upgrade from Win 7). I don't use it but everytime I access a share on my linux box, it pops up and want to be configured.

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Turn-off-or-uninsta...

Re: Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the former head of a customer support department, I can tell you that the most important aspect of communication with a customer is empathy. Even more than expertise, if you can demonstrate that you care about their problem and will get to the bottom of it, the encounter will most likely result in customer retention.

Similarly, has anyone else noticed the overly fake "I want to help you." Interactions with more companies lately? I mean it couldn't be more scripted if someone tried. I applaud the effort, but actual caring/empathy is meaningful, the fake, scripted attempts at it that I've been experiencing lately feel much more condescending than anything else.

Yep. Comcast is a big fan of this method, which is really infuriating and condescending because they pretend to understand my frustration while they fail to fix my problem and pass me off to someone else.

Re: Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

#100
post #9

Unhelpful catch-all responses that don't display a shred of effort or care are the bane of my customer support experiences. Nothing hurts my opinion of a company like being brushed off like a bug.

Whenever I google a problem with a microsoft product, and the search ends up on one of these answer.microsoft.com pages, I always click on the link with an enormous feeling of dread.

I don't think I've ever seen a usable answer on that site.

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