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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

#81

Post by MBCook »

howinteresting wrote: post #63
MBCook wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that should happen. Does the user’s browser support WebDoodle2? Why try to parse a weird history of nonsense and combine that with a table of what versions of what browser supports what? Just check if document.doodle2 is defined. Done. Reliable. Easy. FF pretends to be Chrome pretends to be Safari pretends to be IE pretends to be Netscape pretends to be Mosaic pretends to be god only knows. Actually asking via JS…

Problem is some versions of some browsers have bugs in some parts of doodle2, and the largest websites tend to care about things like that.

But you can make an API to expose the browser version. You don’t need to parse a cursed string.

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

#82

Post by cma »

mattl wrote: post #31
cma wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This isn’t quite right. The BIOS checks for a copy of the Nintendo logo/name in certain ways on boot because licensed games include a copy. Nintendo also manufactured the games which made this easier.

The lawsuit ruling said unlicensed games could include/present a copy too, despite trademark.

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

#83

Post by cma »

Vogtinator wrote: post #42
cma wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Do you have sources for such rulings? I'm only aware of the very similar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade .

The case may have been with Sega and I misremembered, but there was a similar system in place on Gameboy.

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

#84

Post by altdataseller »

andirk wrote: post #59

User agent sniffing is poor practice anyways. Try to use the feature and react according to the browser's abilities. Analytics and similar can sniff all day though. To push browsers to get rid of UA string, we should all use a UA string extension that uses the same string like "DOG-SHIT". That way it'll start showing up in analytics. And if you're trying to date the "data science" girl, spam the app/website with UA s…

For your last point: that would be considered cute if you're attractive. Otherwise it's creepy.

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

#85

Post by atom_arranger »

woojoo666 wrote: post #65
masswerk wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think, there's still use for it. E.g., I recall when Chrome 32 would fail to play a newly created Web Audio BufferSource, unless the playback call came from inside a decodeAudioData() callback. At the same time, you couldn't use this approach to playback sound from e.g. Safari iOS, since the callback lacked the user interaction blessing, resulting in muted audio. Try-catch wasn't an option either, since, as soon as…

That just sounds like a browser bug though. Client side code shouldn't try to work around it, the website should just notify all users that Chrome is broken and won't play audio properly

Potentially can’t notify either if you don’t have a UA string

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

#87

Post by jeroenhd »

andirk wrote: post #59

User agent sniffing is poor practice anyways. Try to use the feature and react according to the browser's abilities. Analytics and similar can sniff all day though. To push browsers to get rid of UA string, we should all use a UA string extension that uses the same string like "DOG-SHIT". That way it'll start showing up in analytics. And if you're trying to date the "data science" girl, spam the app/website with UA s…

Have more fun with your UA strings! Unclosed quotation marks, XXE strings, Shellshock, they might just earn you a bug bounty.

Maybe throw in the EICAR test string as well, getting their shitty antivirus to purge the log files may just help protect your privacy!

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

#88

Post by jeroenhd »

bobse wrote: post #79
olliej wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's just standard web developer laziness. They haven't made it IE only, they just broke the less popular browser, and likely anything else that is not chrome/blink, because chrome/blink is the new IE: its bugs define "correct behavior" it shipping something means "it's standard", no different from the "IE is the internet" era (and just like chrome there was a long period where IE was the best browser, before dev…

It does work correctly once you change useragent string though.

I believe Firefox doesn't expose the audio device output picker, only letting you select a single output device (you can select one in the permission prompt, but changing it is difficult). Last time I looked into why Teams wasn't working right, that was the reason Firefox was still listed as unsupported, because this can easily miss up setups with conference call PCs hooked up to some fancy proprietary audio conferencing system.

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

#89

Post by judge2020 »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #67
Hizonner wrote: post #48

Stop sending User-Agent. Replace it with nothing. Not client hints. Nothing. If sites start rejecting Firefox clients because of that, then instead change it to send exactly the same User-Agent (and other software identification) that Chrome sends, and commit to exactly faking Chrome's signals in the future. The UA header never had any business existing to begin with. Servers guessing client capabilities from the sof…

By default, I do not send a UA header. Mind you I use a text-only browser so I am not concerned with "responsive design", which is arguably one legit use for the UA header. The number of sites or hosting providers^1 that actually require a UA header in order to retrieve a webpage, let alone require a specific UA string, is relatively small. IME, they will fit in a short text file.^2 From firsthand experience I know t…

> so I am not concerned with "responsive design", which is arguably one legit use for the UA header.

Responsive is specifically designed to work without client hints/detection, so you'd be good there anyways. Specific mobile-only versions of websites is what breaks, and a large part of that is (some?) Wordpress sites.

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

#90

Post by josephg »

MBCook wrote: post #33

I know it would be a temporary disaster but I think at this point I wish Safari, FF, Chrome and Edge would just decide on a flag day to get rid of user agents. From March 17th, 2023 (or whatever) all user agent strings are now “WebBrowser/1.0” until the end of time. Just force the switch to better methods.

I think this would be a great change to do alongside http/3 or something. That way we don't break old web sites.
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