Account confirmers, Anti-spam team, Confirmed users, Bureaucrats and Sysops emeriti
4,925
edits
B2G/User Agent: Difference between revisions
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
no edit summary
(Created page with "__NOTOC__ The Content HTTP Headers module owner has chosen the following User Agent string for B2G (both embedded browser and app runtime): Mozilla/5.0 (Mobile; rv:12.0) Gecko...") |
No edit summary |
||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
__NOTOC__ | __NOTOC__ | ||
The Content HTTP Headers module owner has chosen the following User Agent string for B2G (both embedded browser and app runtime): | The Content HTTP Headers module owner has chosen ({{bug|777710}}) the following User Agent string for B2G (both embedded browser and app runtime): | ||
Mozilla/5.0 (Mobile; rv:12.0) Gecko/12.0 Firefox/12.0 | Mozilla/5.0 (Mobile; rv:12.0) Gecko/12.0 Firefox/12.0 | ||
| Line 12: | Line 12: | ||
==Web Compatibility and Failure Modes== | ==Web Compatibility and Failure Modes== | ||
The key argument in favour of string A is that it causes more websites to send mobile, as opposed to desktop, content. John Jensen's [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=761873#c36 metrics] suggest that A causes an additional 9 percentage points of sites to send mobile content (96% vs 87% for B). Even with our Reader mode and advances in intelligent zooming, desktop sites are harder to read and navigate on a mobile device than sites designed for mobile. Of course, many sites don't have a mobile version, so the user has to deal with this problem anyway. But minimising it is an important goal. If a site has a mobile version, B2G needs to get it. | The key argument in favour of string A is that it causes more websites to send mobile, as opposed to desktop, content. John Jensen's [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=761873#c36 metrics] suggest that A causes an additional 9 percentage points of sites to send mobile content (96% vs 87% for B). Those metrics simply do a diff between the content sent to two UAs, so have some built-in inaccuracies. However, it is not denied that a UA which contains 'Android' leads to more mobile content. Even with our Reader mode and advances in intelligent zooming, desktop sites are harder to read and navigate on a mobile device than sites designed for mobile. Of course, many sites don't have a mobile version, so the user has to deal with this problem anyway. But minimising it is an important goal. If a site has a mobile version, B2G needs to get it. | ||
However, A also opens us up to a different failure mode, for which it has proved not possible to get metrics on the size of the problem. We don't always want exactly the same content as Android, because we aren't Android. This problem is most obvious and egregious when we get sent Android intents, which are instructions to installed Android apps to take a particular action (e.g. {{bug|777633}} on YouTube) or "please install our app!" prompts or messages, where the app concerned is an Android app. As B2G is using "app" language about Open Web Apps, this could lead to great user confusion, as the user ends up on the Google Play Store and is very confused about why they can't install the app they have been recommended. This failure mode makes us look like a poor and less capable imitation of Android, and will lead to increased support costs for our partners as they deal with the confused users. In any market, but particularly the low-cost market which B2G is aiming to hit, reducing support costs is vital. | However, A also opens us up to a different failure mode (which does not affect B), for which it has proved not possible to get metrics on the size of the problem. We don't always want exactly the same content as Android, because we aren't Android. This problem is most obvious and egregious when we get sent Android intents, which are instructions to installed Android apps to take a particular action (e.g. {{bug|777633}} on YouTube) or "please install our app!" prompts or messages, where the app concerned is an Android app. As B2G is using "app" language about Open Web Apps, this could lead to great user confusion, as the user ends up on the Google Play Store and is very confused about why they can't install the app they have been recommended. This failure mode makes us look like a poor and less capable imitation of Android, and will lead to increased support costs for our partners as they deal with the confused users. In any market, but particularly the low-cost market which B2G is aiming to hit, reducing support costs is vital. | ||
==Evangelism Story== | ==Evangelism Story== | ||
| Line 42: | Line 42: | ||
==Forward Compatibility== | ==Forward Compatibility== | ||
If we specify no OS, then in the future we can deploy B2G or WebRT on a wide variety of technology stacks without needing to re-evangelise sites who have mistakenly made OS-based UA sniffing assumptions. | If we specify no OS, then in the future we can deploy B2G (or, more generally, WebRT, our app platform) on a wide variety of technology stacks without needing to re-evangelise sites who have mistakenly made OS-based UA sniffing assumptions. Sites can't take bad decisions based on information which isn't actually there. If WebRT has a consistent OS-less user agent everywhere, our evangelism job in the future will be much reduced. | ||
==Mozilla Mission and Market Placement== | ==Mozilla Mission and Market Placement== | ||
| Line 50: | Line 50: | ||
Mozilla's mission is to make the open web a better place. That mission is better served when we get mobile sites sent to any browser marked as "Mobile", which is what we have to do if we use string B. It is not better served if we try and persuade a large proportion of the world's mobile websites to have special code built in to handle our products alone, which we have to do if we use string A. | Mozilla's mission is to make the open web a better place. That mission is better served when we get mobile sites sent to any browser marked as "Mobile", which is what we have to do if we use string B. It is not better served if we try and persuade a large proportion of the world's mobile websites to have special code built in to handle our products alone, which we have to do if we use string A. | ||
Mozilla's positioning for Firefox, for Open Web Apps, and for Firefox OS is "the web is the platform" and, by implication, the underlying OS is irrelevant. Having no OS indicator in the UA string is in line with that market placement. Faking | Mozilla's positioning for Firefox, for Open Web Apps, and for Firefox OS is "the web is the platform" and, by implication, the underlying OS is irrelevant. Having no OS indicator in the UA string is in line with that market placement. Faking an OS which we aren't running on is an admission to some degree that our message actually isn't true. | ||
==Analogous Situations== | ==Analogous Situations== | ||