[OU] mask s IE

[Ledgem]

I've had a few sites completely deny my browser entry because it wasn't IE. The sites usually give a message stating that it won't be compatible. Masking as IE generally lets Opera in. Surprise, surprise - it's 99.9% (if not 100%) compatible. I usually send the webmaster an email to let them know. Two websites that I've messaged have removed the "you can't enter" message for Opera.

If you're wondering why you can't set it for every single site at once, there's actually a good reason. Way back at version 7, Opera allowed you to do that. It actually came that way by default, so that fewer people who used it would run up against those sites that cause problems simply because you're not using IE. When people talk about the "browser wars" they look at the site statistics of a number of websites to see how many people were using which browser. By identifying itself as IE, Opera was adding to IE's statistics and detracting from its own.

That's potentially problematic, because while Firefox and Opera (and Safara/Konqueror, I believe) pride themselves on following web standards, Internet Explorer has never really been about following them. In order for things to look nice in IE, pages need to be coded specially for it. If people think that the vast majority of the world is using IE, it encourages more development of those IE-only webpages. The Opera developers probably realized this, felt spurned by the web statistics, and also realized that IE-only webpages are encountered relatively randomly overall. Hence, it makes sense to allow people to make changes for one site, but not for every single site they visit.

I'm probably preaching to the choir with this list, but I'm happy with that change.
David

On Tue, 05 Feb 2008 04:38:13 -0800, Hugh Burns <r.h.burns at worldnet.att.net> wrote:

> Thanks for reply.
> It appears correct as you suggest: each site preference can be set, but it
> is not possible to set the browser id for ALL sites at one time.
> That's seems odd to me. What is the benefit to be able to switch browser
> ids per each site visited?
> I have yet to visit a site that balked at my browser id.
> Raleigh
>
>
> On Mon, 04 Feb 2008 18:42:05 -0500, ek-orch <rolf-str at privat.utfors.se>
> wrote:
>
>> Hugh Burns wrote:
>>> I am using Opera version 9.02.
>>> When I set "browser id" to mask as IE, it does not remain set.
>>> Instead, later it will have changed back to "identify as Opera" after
>>> a log off and login.
>>> Is there a way to prevent this reversion?
>>
>> Have you tried this through "site preferences"?
>>
>> (Tools/Preferences/Advanced - manage site preferences/[site] -
>> edit.../Network - browser identification)
>> (F12 - edit site preferences/Network - browser identification)
>> (Right click - edit site preferences/Network - browser identification)
>>
>> If you do this for a specific site it should stick - for that site. (Or
>> at
>> least I hope so... :)
>>
>> I don't think you can set this for "all sites"? Is this what you tried to
>> do?
>>
>> regards/Rolf
>>

>
>