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Changing the UA String: Difference between revisions
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(Created page with "Web browsers send a User Agent string on each request, which identifies the software being used and often some features of the platform. From time to time, proposals are made to ...") |
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A site needs to know some browser capabilities when rendering the very first response and so, if they are to avoid an extra round-trip and page load, they need to be provided with the necessary information up front. | A site needs to know some browser capabilities when rendering the very first response and so, if they are to avoid an extra round-trip and page load, they need to be provided with the necessary information up front. | ||
===The Web Is Just Broken=== | |||
If a class of sites have content suitable for Firefox but are not sending it to us due to UA issues, changing the UA fixes the problem - whether or not you think they should have done that in the first place, that's what they've done and we have to deal with it. | |||
==Notes== | |||
* One alternative to UA string changes is evangelism. Particularly if only a few widely-used libraries need to be changed, it may be possible to bend the web to our will. Mozilla has done this before around the time of the Netscape 6 and Mozilla 1.0 releases with a massive evangelism effort. We can do that again if we have a task to rally around. | |||
* For the best chance of success, proposals for change should to be accompanied by documented evidence of the improvements they bring. | |||