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IE11 on Windows 8.1 - Google Search loads in legacy mode

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Re: IE11 on Windows 8.1 - Google Search loads in legacy mode

#61

Post by ericras »

Touche wrote: post #36
cbr wrote: post #26

IE11 normally sends "Trident/7.0" and not "MSIE". Apparently Microsoft has added "google.com" to the Compatibility View List [1], which means IE11 now sends Google a User Agent that does include "MSIE". Google is interpreting this to mean it's an old version of IE, and sending the legacy view. You can manually disable the CVL, but then other sites that Microsoft has determined need old versions of IE won't work. I su…

Why does the entire web community agree that feature detection is the way to go and UA sniffing is bad, but time after time shows that Google does it on nearly all of their products?

Feature detection has much greater overhead.

Re: IE11 on Windows 8.1 - Google Search loads in legacy mode

#62

Post by sounds »

sp332 wrote: post #22
Yver wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IE11 -> Tools -> Compatibility View Settings. > Remove check on "Use Microsoft Compatibility lists". That's the solution posted in that thread. It's an IE problem.

Tweaking Firefox to send the same user-agent string "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 10.0; Windows NT 6.3; WOW64; Trident/7.0)" causes the exact same problem. It's a Google problem. ETA: In standards mode, IE sends "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64; Trident/7.0; rv:11.0) like Gecko".

Firefox sending "MSIE 10.0" maybe, but not "MSIE 11.0"

Re: IE11 on Windows 8.1 - Google Search loads in legacy mode

#64

Post by esrauch »

lucideer wrote: post #44
joombar wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two different user agent strings for one version of one browser? That can change at any moment based on a list the site authors don't control? There's no way that'd ever confuse things!

Which is precisely why good web developers never trust user agents . Because they confuse things and cause bugs like this. It's lazy/incompetent practice, which shouldn't really excusable for such a supposed massive advocate of web standards. MS are no shining example, but it's pot calling kettle black. Definitely a Google bug - a long standing one

There are several reasons why UA detection is relevant where feature detection fails. The first is that you can serve prebuilt js binaries that have only the relevant logic for the requesting browser; strictly smaller js files for every user since you aren't serving irrelevant js.

Some things aren't feature detectable, like actual weird bugs in behavior that need browser specific workarounds.

In this case it looks like MS has the domain listed for their fallback mode, which doesn't just change the UA but actually changes the browser behavior (IE9 in IE8 mode has no canvas support and will fail the feature detection for canvas appropriately).

Re: IE11 on Windows 8.1 - Google Search loads in legacy mode

#65

Post by enscr »

yulaow wrote: post #48
enscr wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried switching to Bing (kinda forced on a Lumia) and also sometimes when I can't find what I'm looking for with google. Without fail I've found myself switching back from Bing almost instantly even if I'm stuck with IE.

You probably are in the US. Outside that, bing just cannot find anything. Anyway i also have a lumia but I set google as search engine in ie mobile

You read my comment wrong. I am saying that Bing is useless. I did the same with my Lumia but still some actions default to Bing.

Re: IE11 on Windows 8.1 - Google Search loads in legacy mode

#66

Post by gsnedders »

ahoge wrote: post #43
Touche wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does the entire web community agree that feature detection is the way to go and UA sniffing is bad, but time after time shows that Google does it on nearly all of their products?

Compatibility view doesn't just change the UA string. It actually switches to a different (IE8-like?) engine.

It changes to one of: IE7 Standards Mode, IE8 Standards Mode, IE9 Standards Mode, IE9 Almost-Standards Mode, IE10 Standards Mode, or IE10 Almost-Standards Mode. I wish I was joking.

Re: IE11 on Windows 8.1 - Google Search loads in legacy mode

#67

Post by mischanix »

Coincoin wrote: post #45
mischanix wrote: post #7

"Hey, if we make Google uglier, maybe people will use Bing!" "Probably not, but let's mess with 'em anyway."

Or rather: "Hey, google.com is still serving up a broken UA detected page that hasn't been working on IE11 for over a month now. Let's do the sensible thing for our release and make it work by adding Google to our list of sites that serves non standard content, because it does exactly that." By not working, I mean, not working at all. If you are lucky it has the whole text you typed and the search button might wake u…

Yeah, I played with my UA and google's homepage and I like this explanation better. It's kinda horrifying how broken it is.
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