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The IE 11 user-agent forced Mozilla to freeze part of its user-agent string

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Re: The IE 11 user-agent forced Mozilla to freeze part of its user-agent string

#21

Post by gruez »

TylerE wrote: post #16
jchw wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. A web browser browsers the world wide web. A WebDAV file browser just speaks HTTP. No hypertext, no web. edit: Wow, it's not really that complicated. Please take a moment to stop taking a crowbar to each and every crack and crevice of this argument. It's not about hypertext specifically, or hypermedia, or HTTP, or HTML, that's missing the point. The point is, a web browser is software that browses websites. A W…

[flagged]

It's called that, but the program in question doesn't understand it. The fact that the protocol's name contains "hypertext" is irrelevant, just as using http to download a .zip file doesn't make that file a "hypertext".

Re: The IE 11 user-agent forced Mozilla to freeze part of its user-agent string

#22

Post by jchw »

TylerE wrote: post #16
jchw wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. A web browser browsers the world wide web. A WebDAV file browser just speaks HTTP. No hypertext, no web. edit: Wow, it's not really that complicated. Please take a moment to stop taking a crowbar to each and every crack and crevice of this argument. It's not about hypertext specifically, or hypermedia, or HTTP, or HTML, that's missing the point. The point is, a web browser is software that browses websites. A W…

[flagged]

Congratulations on finding the word you were looking for. The only problem is, when you use WebDAV, the payloads aren't hypertext. The acronym doesn't matter.

Tar stands for tape archive, but thankfully it works on disk drives too.

Re: The IE 11 user-agent forced Mozilla to freeze part of its user-agent string

#23

Post by None4U »

TylerE wrote: post #16
jchw wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. A web browser browsers the world wide web. A WebDAV file browser just speaks HTTP. No hypertext, no web. edit: Wow, it's not really that complicated. Please take a moment to stop taking a crowbar to each and every crack and crevice of this argument. It's not about hypertext specifically, or hypermedia, or HTTP, or HTML, that's missing the point. The point is, a web browser is software that browses websites. A W…

[flagged]

If I download a Debian .iso using HTTP, is that hypertext? How about updating my system using `apt`?

Re: The IE 11 user-agent forced Mozilla to freeze part of its user-agent string

#24

Post by Dylan16807 »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #9

In retrospect, wasn't putting "Mozilla" in your user-agent string when you aren't the Mozilla Foundation or project a trademark violation, that they could have enforced?

Not when it's for compatibility and talking to a machine.

Re: The IE 11 user-agent forced Mozilla to freeze part of its user-agent string

#25

Post by Nextgrid »

LightHugger wrote: post #4
Spivak wrote: post #3

The more this happens the more Chrome deciding to freeze the UA string forever makes sense.

It's not a bad idea for security either, as a way to combat fingerprinting efforts.

Which is also exactly why it ended up being reverted.

Re: The IE 11 user-agent forced Mozilla to freeze part of its user-agent string

#26

Post by PenguinCoder »

LightHugger wrote: post #4
Spivak wrote: post #3

The more this happens the more Chrome deciding to freeze the UA string forever makes sense.

It's not a bad idea for security either, as a way to combat fingerprinting efforts.

User agent strings aren't reliable for fingerprinting users or devices already. Shouldn't be using them as high fidelity IOCs. But yeah, some still do. Much better ways to fingerprint users or devices on HTTP/websites.

Re: The IE 11 user-agent forced Mozilla to freeze part of its user-agent string

#27

Post by jrochkind1 »

cma wrote: post #20
jrochkind1 wrote: post #9

In retrospect, wasn't putting "Mozilla" in your user-agent string when you aren't the Mozilla Foundation or project a trademark violation, that they could have enforced?

You can't use trademark in that way if they would need it for compatibility. Nintendo made games have a "nintendo" title scroll on Gameboy and checked for it as "genuine cartridge" protection in a special chip, and sued third parties for trademark violations if they included the title scroll to get around the protection chip. Courts ruled Nintendo couldn't use trademark in that way, that it was laundering in more rig…

ah, righto. thanks for specific case history example. and indeed i'm glad of this.

It's weird in this case because it's not Mozilla itself that was requiring Mozilla in the user-agent string for a site to allow or support the browser, but third-parties, who Mozilla didn't encourage or particularly want to do that, as far as I know.

But it's still probably true that it would not be enforceable under trademark for this and other reasons, okay.

I wonder if Firefox has ever considered taking "Mozilla" _out_ of their user-agent! At this point it's probably impossible. We're just stuck with this mess.

Re: The IE 11 user-agent forced Mozilla to freeze part of its user-agent string

#29

Post by eyelidlessness »

jdsully wrote: post #15
rmccue wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The use of “Mozilla” I believe predates the Mozilla Foundation, as it was from Netscape’s user agent string before it was spun out. https://webaim.org/blog/user-agent-string-history/

They would have passed on the trademark rights with the rest of the IP

I’m on mobile so kinda limited search capacity, but it looks like IE was using “Mozilla” in its UA string for a couple years before the trademark was published (granted it was filed a few months prior to that IE release, and granted I have no idea how to read uspto.gov with any confidence that I understand it, and also granted I have no idea how much prior usage of trademarks overlaps with concepts like prior art for patents and copyright).

Re: The IE 11 user-agent forced Mozilla to freeze part of its user-agent string

#30

Post by eyelidlessness »

rileymat2 wrote: post #19
jrochkind1 wrote: post #9

In retrospect, wasn't putting "Mozilla" in your user-agent string when you aren't the Mozilla Foundation or project a trademark violation, that they could have enforced?

I doubt the user agent string would lead to a confusion of consumers, if consumers are end users and not web servers. I don't think you can ban the use of a word with trademark if it does not cause confusion.

On the other hand, the whole reason UA strings are such a mess is because they have a long history of confusing humans who program computers. And being used sometimes intentionally for that purpose. And being used sometimes intentionally to mitigate that.
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