Any utilities to remove the ALL the Microsoft formatting tags?

[Tina Holmboe]

Re: Any utilities to remove the ALL the Microsoft formatting tags?

Alexander Johannesen <alex@shelter.n u> exclaimed in <oprvo2m0zjepv7 f3@news.songnet works.no>:
[color=blue][color=green]
>> It makes me wonder - how do we know that not ALL requests that come from "IE" is not by a browser masquerading as such ?[/color]
>
> Come on, think of all the pointy-haired people out there. There are
> at least *some* IE's out there. :)[/color]

Very true. However, not ALL users of the Internet are PHBs, are they ?

On second though, don't answer that ... I fear I would not be able to
sleep knowing the Truth.

--
- Tina Holmboe Greytower Technologies
tina@greytower. net http://www.greytower.net/
[+46] 0708 557 905

[Tina Holmboe]

Re: Any utilities to remove the ALL the Microsoft formatting tags?

Karim <karim3411@!!ya hoo!!.com> exclaimed in <1svscv03zew8i. 2ndoprddwc1f$.d lg@40tude.net>:

[quoting Bart Lateur]
[color=blue][color=green]
>> Don't forget about browser spoofing. A lot of browsers pretend to be
>> MSIE, because some sites simply refuse to work when they detect you're
>> using something other than MSIE, even though they'd work fine if they
>> did.
>>
>> So the actual number for MSIE is probably a bit lower.[/color]
>
>
> Which browsers do that?[/color]

Exactly.

--
- Tina Holmboe Greytower Technologies
tina@greytower. net http://www.greytower.net/
[+46] 0708 557 905

[Alexander Johannesen]

Re: Any utilities to remove the ALL the Microsoft formatting tags?

>>> Don't forget about browser spoofing. A lot of browsers pretend to be[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>> MSIE, because some sites simply refuse to work when they detect you're
>>> using something other than MSIE, even though they'd work fine if they
>>> did.[/color][/color][/color]
[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>> So the actual number for MSIE is probably a bit lower.[/color][/color][/color]
[color=blue][color=green]
>> Which browsers do that?[/color][/color]

Adrienne <arbpen@sbcglob al.net> wrote:[color=blue]
> Opera[/color]

To clarify; mine doesn't, but the *default* setting is to identify
as IE, which is unfortunate as a default behaviour.


Alexander
--
_______________ ____ _______________ _______ _______________ ______________
| |
http://shelter.nu/ | alex at shelter . nu | http://shelter.nu/xsiteable/
_______________ ____|__________ ____________|__ _______________ ____________

[Brian]

Re: Any utilities to remove the ALL the Microsoft formatting tags?

Alexander Johannesen wrote:[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>>> Don't forget about browser spoofing. A lot of browsers
>>>> pretend to be MSIE, because some sites simply refuse to work
>>>> when they detect you're using something other than MSIE, even
>>>> though they'd work fine if they did.[/color][/color]
>[color=green][color=darkred]
>>> Which browsers do that?[/color][/color]
>[color=green]
>> Opera[/color]
>
> but the *default* setting is to identify as IE, which is
> unfortunate as a default behaviour.[/color]

I certainly agree with you on principle. I'm sure Opera did it to
avoid having customers who know little about browser sniffing download
a trial version, have it fail on various sites, and give it up as a
"broken" browser.

--
Brian
follow the directions in my address to email me

[Isofarro]

Re: Any utilities to remove the ALL the Microsoft formatting tags?

Karim wrote:
[color=blue]
> On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 07:10:05 GMT, Bart Lateur wrote:
>[color=green]
>> Matt Probert wrote:
>>
>> Don't forget about browser spoofing. A lot of browsers pretend to be
>> MSIE, because some sites simply refuse to work when they detect you're
>> using something other than MSIE, even though they'd work fine if they
>> did.
>>
>> So the actual number for MSIE is probably a bit lower.[/color]
>
> Which browsers do that?[/color]

All of them identifying themselves as Microsoft Internet Explorer.



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[karim]

Re: Any utilities to remove the ALL the Microsoft formatting tags?

On Fri, 19 Sep 2003 17:11:37 +0000, Isofarro wrote:
[color=blue]
> Karim wrote:
>[color=green]
>> On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 07:10:05 GMT, Bart Lateur wrote:
>>[color=darkred]
>>> Matt Probert wrote:
>>>
>>> Don't forget about browser spoofing. A lot of browsers pretend to be
>>> MSIE, because some sites simply refuse to work when they detect you're
>>> using something other than MSIE, even though they'd work fine if they
>>> did.
>>>
>>> So the actual number for MSIE is probably a bit lower.[/color]
>>
>> Which browsers do that?[/color]
>
> All of them identifying themselves as Microsoft Internet Explorer.
>
>[/color]

Which ones by name? Name some respected browsers who lie about their
identity. Why would anyone use these browsers anyways?

Karim

[Daniel R. Tobias]

Re: Any utilities to remove the ALL the Microsoft formatting tags?

Brian wrote:[color=blue]
> Alexander Johannesen wrote:[color=green]
>> but the *default* setting is to identify as IE, which is
>> unfortunate as a default behaviour.[/color]
>
> I certainly agree with you on principle. I'm sure Opera did it to
> avoid having customers who know little about browser sniffing download
> a trial version, have it fail on various sites, and give it up as a
> "broken" browser.[/color]

Some of my own discussion of the issue is at:

http://webtips.dan.info/brand-x/useragent.html

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/

[Isofarro]

Re: Any utilities to remove the ALL the Microsoft formatting tags?

karim wrote:
[color=blue]
> On Fri, 19 Sep 2003 17:11:37 +0000, Isofarro wrote:
>[color=green]
>> Karim wrote:
>>[color=darkred]
>>> On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 07:10:05 GMT, Bart Lateur wrote:
>>>
>>>> Matt Probert wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Don't forget about browser spoofing. A lot of browsers pretend to be
>>>> MSIE, because some sites simply refuse to work when they detect you're
>>>> using something other than MSIE, even though they'd work fine if they
>>>> did.
>>>>
>>>> So the actual number for MSIE is probably a bit lower.
>>>
>>> Which browsers do that?[/color]
>>
>> All of them identifying themselves as Microsoft Internet Explorer.[/color]
>
> Which ones by name?[/color]

Produce a list of all browsers, and I'll show you a list of browsers that
can return different user-agents.
[color=blue]
> Name some respected browsers who lie about their
> identity.[/color]

Please produce a reference to a specification that dictates how a browser
must identify itself, and where these browsers are breaching that
particular point.
[color=blue]
> Why would anyone use these browsers anyways?[/color]

Because it gives the users the functionality they require in a manner that
is appropriate to them.


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[Goran Larsson]

Re: Any utilities to remove the ALL the Microsoft formatting tags?

In article <1obeoyleai9tw. 2bkgc9x6ie5i$.d lg@40tude.net>,
karim <karim3411@!!ya hoo!!.com> wrote:
[color=blue]
> Which ones by name? Name some respected browsers who lie about their
> identity. Why would anyone use these browsers anyways?[/color]

One example is MS Internet Explorer claiming to be Mozilla:
"Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT)"
"Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows 98)"
"Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0)"

Another example is Opera claiming to be MSIE claiming to be Mozilla:
"Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1) Opera 7.11 [en]"

Also Safari claiming to be Mozilla:
"Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/85 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/85"

Also Konqueror claiming to be Mozilla:
"Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/3.1; Linux)"

The majority of browsers claim to be Mozilla.

--
Göran Larsson http://www.mitt-eget.com/

[Daniel R. Tobias]

Re: Any utilities to remove the ALL the Microsoft formatting tags?

Isofarro wrote:[color=blue]
> Produce a list of all browsers, and I'll show you a list of browsers that
> can return different user-agents.[/color]

http://webtips.dan.info/brand-x/

Probably not *all* browsers, but as big a list of them as I've managed
to come up with.
[color=blue]
> Please produce a reference to a specification that dictates how a browser
> must identify itself, and where these browsers are breaching that
> particular point.[/color]

Well, there is RFC 2616:
ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2616.txt

14.43 User-Agent

The User-Agent request-header field contains information about the
user agent originating the request. This is for statistical purposes,
the tracing of protocol violations, and automated recognition of user
agents for the sake of tailoring responses to avoid particular user
agent limitations. User agents SHOULD include this field with
requests. The field can contain multiple product tokens (section 3.8)
and comments identifying the agent and any subproducts which form a
significant part of the user agent. By convention, the product tokens
are listed in order of their significance for identifying the
application.

User-Agent = "User-Agent" ":" 1*( product | comment )

Example:

User-Agent: CERN-LineMode/2.15 libwww/2.17b3

OK, this doesn't explicitly, in so many words, say it's against the
protocol to lie or mislead about what browser is being used, but it does
imply that the user-agent string should contain product info about the
browser that is being used, not about whatever other browsers happen to
be popular so that it's useful to pretend to be them.

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/

[Daniel R. Tobias]

Re: Any utilities to remove the ALL the Microsoft formatting tags?

Goran Larsson wrote:
[color=blue]
> The majority of browsers claim to be Mozilla.[/color]

Seems like that's something that the mozilla.org people could somehow
use for marketing... "Stop using the imitators that only pretend to be
Mozilla, and use the real thing!"

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/

[Toby A Inkster]

Re: Any utilities to remove the ALL the Microsoft formatting tags?

karim wrote:
[color=blue]
> Which ones by name? Name some respected browsers who lie about their
> identity. Why would anyone use these browsers anyways?[/color]

Internet Explorer lies about its identity. It claims to be Mozilla.

Netscape also claims to be Mozilla.

Opera in its default setting claims to be Mozilla *and* Internet Explorer
*and* Opera, although can be switched so that it claims to just be Opera
or to be Opera and some version of Mozilla.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me - http://www.goddamn.co.uk/tobyink/?id=132

[Mark Nobles]

Re: Any utilities to remove the ALL the Microsoft formatting tags?

In article <9N2bb.1036$qK1 .1011141@news2. news.adelphia.n et>, Daniel R.
Tobias <dan@tobias.nam e> wrote:
[color=blue]
> not about whatever other browsers happen to
> be popular so that it's useful to pretend to be them.[/color]

But it's not about browsers that happen to be popular, it's about
arrogant site-writers who write pages that test for which browser is
reading them, and only interact if they get the right answer. That way
they can write for the least standard-compliant browser, and reject
anything that actually expects a well-written page. Of course, by
pretending to be that non-compliant browser, any decent browser works
just fine with those pages, but it pumps up the statistics for the
convicted, illegal monopoly.

[karim]

Re: Any utilities to remove the ALL the Microsoft formatting tags?

On Sat, 20 Sep 2003 19:55:36 GMT, Goran Larsson wrote:
[color=blue]
> In article <1obeoyleai9tw. 2bkgc9x6ie5i$.d lg@40tude.net>,
> karim <karim3411@!!ya hoo!!.com> wrote:
>[color=green]
>> Which ones by name? Name some respected browsers who lie about their
>> identity. Why would anyone use these browsers anyways?[/color]
>
> One example is MS Internet Explorer claiming to be Mozilla:
> "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT)"
> "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows 98)"
> "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0)"
>
> Another example is Opera claiming to be MSIE claiming to be Mozilla:
> "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1) Opera 7.11 [en]"
>
> Also Safari claiming to be Mozilla:
> "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/85 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/85"
>
> Also Konqueror claiming to be Mozilla:
> "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/3.1; Linux)"
>
> The majority of browsers claim to be Mozilla.[/color]

These are saying they are compatible. This is different than saying I AM
that browser. Otherwise how do web servers identify the different kinds in
their logs?


Karim

[karim]

Re: Any utilities to remove the ALL the Microsoft formatting tags?

On Sat, 20 Sep 2003 19:59:24 +0000, Isofarro wrote:
[color=blue]
> karim wrote:
>[color=green]
>> On Fri, 19 Sep 2003 17:11:37 +0000, Isofarro wrote:
>>[color=darkred]
>>> Karim wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 07:10:05 GMT, Bart Lateur wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Matt Probert wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Don't forget about browser spoofing. A lot of browsers pretend to be
>>>>> MSIE, because some sites simply refuse to work when they detect you're
>>>>> using something other than MSIE, even though they'd work fine if they
>>>>> did.
>>>>>
>>>>> So the actual number for MSIE is probably a bit lower.
>>>>
>>>> Which browsers do that?
>>>
>>> All of them identifying themselves as Microsoft Internet Explorer.[/color]
>>
>> Which ones by name?[/color]
>
> Produce a list of all browsers, and I'll show you a list of browsers that
> can return different user-agents.[/color]

You're the one who made a claim. Why should I do your homework. If you
claim there are browsers who lie about their identity, you should be able
to supply proof. I am the one asking you to tell me which browsers do that.

[color=blue][color=green]
>> Name some respected browsers who lie about their
>> identity.[/color]
>
> Please produce a reference to a specification that dictates how a browser
> must identify itself, and where these browsers are breaching that
> particular point.[/color]

And you're going to tell me that the agent field is not a required one. I
went through this before with you. If all browsers use the agent field, one
can use it then. How do web servers determine the browser type? It doesn't
have to be a required one. So tell me which respected browser is going to
lie about who it really is.



[color=blue]
>[color=green]
>> Why would anyone use these browsers anyways?[/color]
>
> Because it gives the users the functionality they require in a manner that
> is appropriate to them.[/color]

Whatever these are, they are very small. Assume them as a rounding error
that can be ignored. We are interested maybe in the top 5 browsers, top 10
maybe. Others can be ignored.


Karim