[OU] Identification problem

[Bessenyei Balázs]

Hi

This is just partly ms fault, the true blame is on the web site operators.  
Since MS's browser is the most widely used, mostly out of ignorance  
website operators prefer it above all else. Unfortunatly it is one of the  
most misbehaving among the others on the market, in terms of standards  
compilance. Website operators wants that their pages rendered as they  
imagined in the browsers or just simply try to force visitors to use a  
different browser. This is not a trivial task, so most of them choose the  
cheapest method, which is exclude the other browsers. I have seen sites  
which excluded everything except mozilla. MS once used the browser  
identification string to send faulty CSS to Opera , which made some of  
their sites to appear faulty in opera, fortunatly they have reconsidered  
it.

The site operator can check the browser using the browser identification  
string. This is not very accurate since browsers can send back anything.

The other method is checking key features of the browser, since these  
features are unique to browsers so they are like a finger print. This  
checking can be done via java scripts. This method can be defeted by user  
javascripts. You can find those on the net or create one for yourself. For  
example http://userjs.org/. Opera also has a bulit in java script library  
that corrects some site specific errors, it also updated at regular  
intervals, but in your case it wont help you. You can find more  
inforamation regarding user javascripts:  
http://www.opera.com/support/tutorials/userjs/index.dml and  
http://www.opera.com/docs/browserjs/index.dml

Also there are some browser features, which are operating system specific  
like AcitveX and VB scripts. These features can't be reproduced on other  
operating system or can't be simulated. On windows operating system opera  
an mozilla browser can access to ActiveX via MedCo's Neptune plugin.

You can try CodeWeavers CrossOver plugin http://www.codeweavers.com/ This  
enables you to run windows software on Linux. It is a paid product but you  
can download a try out version or if you feel like it a full version from  
p2p networks. Of course you can get it legaly, after that you are sure it  
solves your problem or...

The other solution is to install a VmWare virtual machine, install a  
windows on it and you can access to IE.

Best Regards
BB

On Fri, 03 Aug 2007 13:55:43 +0200, Stephen Liu <satimis at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Hi Bessenyei,
>
>
> Tks for your detail advice.
>
>> "It always displays;
>>
>> Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; en)
>>
>> Not as IE."
>>
>> I see no problem here, that is exactly the the Browser Identification
>>
>> string of IE 6.0 It has some histroical reason, there was a time when
>>
>> Netscape (Mozila) 4, was more advanced in terms of features than IE.
>> So
>> some websites started to check whether they dealing with the advanced
>>
>> mozilla or the lame ie. After MS added the features those sites still
>>
>> didn't work. So they decided that they claim themself to be mozilla
>> compatible.
>
> Noted with tks.
>
>
>> Unfortunatly nowdays, some sites are useing scripts to identificate
>> browsers. The scripts are checking features unique to that browser or
>>
>> works differently in that browser than in others.
>
> For what reason they add the script checking the features of browser?
> Is this MS tactic to exclude other browsers making IE the only emperor
> on the Earth?
>
>
>> In this case
>> changing
>> the browser identification string won't fool the site. Of course user
>> java
>> scripts can eliminate that checking to.
>
> Could you please explain in more detail?  Tks.  I don't expect going
> back to MS Windows only for visiting some sites.
>
>
> I tried IEs4Linux, not very promising.  I just upgraded "wine" in
> running "apt-get".  The top bar disappears, including the address box.
> I have no way to browse except its homepage.
>
>
> B.R.
> Stephen
>
> Send instant messages to your online friends  
> http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com



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