MS to release CEdg[e] with IE for Win7+

In article , Mayayana
wrote:


In the past it's also been common to put ads and other
info in UAs.

that's never been common, nor does it make any sense.




Over the years, Apple and Mozilla worked to
meet official standards. Opera is now just another wrapper
for Apple's webkit -- as is pretty much everything except
for Mozilla's browsers.

nope. opera is chromium-based.


Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like
Gecko) Chrome/64.0.3282.140 Safari/537.36 Edge/18.17763

Notice that it pretends to be everything else. MS have
asked webmasters to please pretend Edge is like Chrome
and FF. But they do still put "Edge" in the UA. Since Edge is
essentially a boutique browser, only available on Win10 and
reportedly not compatible, I block it by checking the UA for
"Edge".

edge is available on older versions of windows and even on mac os, as
well as ios and android.

if your site was standards compliant, it would work fine in edge, both
the old and the new variants.

Interestingly, IE11 has two modes. One is apparently like
Edge. But if you add a domain to a compatibility list in IE11
it will render in "quirks mode", which means it renders like
IE6. When you do that, IE11 switches from an IE11 UA and
sends the IE7 UA.

for compatibility with all the sites that are non-standard and rely on
ie.

nospam on Thu, 20 Jun 2019 22:44:53 -0400
typed in alt.windows7.general the following:
In article , pyotr
filipivich wrote:


For webmasters, as I understand it, the UA is "Edg"

For the non-technically proficient, What is UA?

user agent

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/User-Agent
The User-Agent request header contains a characteristic string
that allows the network protocol peers to identify the application
type, operating system, software vendor or software version of
the requesting software user agent.

Thank you. I know how easy it is to use "everyday ordinary
language" without realizing that not everybody speaks the "jive of the
tribe."
--
pyotr filipivich
Next month's Panel: Graft - Boon or blessing?

"Mayayana" on Fri, 21 Jun 2019 09:35:01
-0400 typed in alt.windows7.general the following:
"pyotr filipivich" wrote
|
| For the non-technically proficient, What is UA?

Sorry. userAgent. I just get tired of writing the whole
thing and figured that people know what it is or could deduce.
In most browsers you can set it as you like. (In IE it's difficult,
requiring a number of Registry tweaks. I'm not sure if even
that works in later versions.) There are also extensions that
can do it.

Though it can be a bit tricky. In FF, at least, the
browser UA doesn't seem to be the same as the script-
returned UA. When you visit a site, the browser sends a
header, including the UA. But javascript can also query
the UA. In my experience, both need to be altered.

In the past it's also been common to put ads and other
info in UAs. Microsoft used to add the installed version of
.Net.... Search bots identify themselves... Sometimes
download programs will add their name.

This goes back to the early days of browsers. The idea
was to let the website know what software and OS was
handling the page request. It might have started out of vanity;
I don't know. But it's historically been used to accommodate
different browsers. For instance, I'm using New Moon on XP
as well as FF 52.9. I send a UA like so:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:64.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/64.0

At some point I'll update it. I set the UA
to something recent, so that dingbat websites won't
complain or even refuse to load because they think
my browser is more than a month old. Google is one
of the worst. They've become like Microsoft used to
be. But it's not just Google. Many websites have
become javascript software, with 1+ MB of script
loading, and very little actual HTML. what used to be
a webpage is now a large software program, with dynamic
display, tracking, custom ads, etc.

The webmasters for those sites are often
trying to look clever, loading things like jquery and
wanting to use the very latest functionality. They
usually don't even know what they're doing. They just
share code snippets among themselves for doing clever
things.
In that commercial, heavily scripted environment
the focus has changed from accommodating as many
browsers as possible to demanding the most recent
browser. Back 15 years ago, hotshot web designers
used to be mocked for putting notes on their sites
that said things like: "Best viewed with Internet
Explorer 5.5". They were vain dandies who wanted to
show off their talents, even if no one could load their
page properly. Today it's reversed: "You want to see
our page? Get the latest browser." "Sorry, but your
browser is unacceptable for what we want to do."

Some sites are so messed up I never get them to work.
I have to visit Netflix on my computer where I allow
bad security because it won't work otherwise. and they
change the whole thing frequently! I have recent FF and
allow script, but still Netflix is completely crippled. I don't
even know why.

The biggest reason for UA has historically been because
IE was created to be incompatible with Netscape. And each
version of IE is incompatible with the last. There are a
lot of minor things. For example, a border line around a
table might be 1 pixel higher in one version than the other.
Or a DIV can be made to be a block element in one browser
but not in another. My own webpages all use redundant
DIVs and TABLEs for that reason. Older versions of IE can't
be made to set a DIV as a block element. It's only used as
a style marker. So if I want x to be on top of y then I have
to use a table. There are loads of little details like that. It
gets so complicated that many major websites use so-called
spaghetti code:

If it's IE6 then do X, else if it's IE7 then do y, else if it's IE 8
then do z, else if it's IE9 then do a, else if it's IE9 then do b.

Opera used to be at the other extreme. They were such
sticklers for official rules that their browser broke on many
websites. Web design is as much an art as a science. The
Opera fanatics wanted it to be pure science.

Over the years, Apple and Mozilla worked to
meet official standards. Opera is now just another wrapper
for Apple's webkit -- as is pretty much everything except
for Mozilla's browsers. 15 years ago, with IE and ActiveX,
Microsoft was king. Many sites only worked in IE. But gradually
that's changed. ActiveX was phased out. Flash is being phased
out. IE got left behind for being too quirky and unstable. It's
also notoriously unsafe. So Microsoft decided to try playing
fair and see if that would work. They've gradually changed their
browser to meet standards. But last I heard, they're still not
doing it. Nevertheless, they apparently hoped that with Win10
and Edge they'd have a chance at getting their monopoly back.
Here's a typical Edge UA:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like
Gecko) Chrome/64.0.3282.140 Safari/537.36 Edge/18.17763

Notice that it pretends to be everything else. MS have
asked webmasters to please pretend Edge is like Chrome
and FF. But they do still put "Edge" in the UA. Since Edge is
essentially a boutique browser, only available on Win10 and
reportedly not compatible, I block it by checking the UA for
"Edge".
Interestingly, IE11 has two modes. One is apparently like
Edge. But if you add a domain to a compatibility list in IE11
it will render in "quirks mode", which means it renders like
IE6. When you do that, IE11 switches from an IE11 UA and
sends the IE7 UA.

So Microsoft are one of the loudest voices saying webmasters
shouldn't use the UA, but that's all just a scam. They use it,
exploit it, spoof it, and depend on it themselves.

For people using a browser, the UA can be very useful.
Many sites will act up with just a slightly older version of
FF. (I'm using FF 52, which is 15 versions old. But it's
actually only 1 year old!) In most cases there isn't actually
any reason to demand a new browser. The webmasters
just can't be bothered to keep track so they demand
whatever is new. For both privacy and compatibility you
can solve a lot of problems by pretending to be using a
very typical, recent browser. That's why I'm travelling
as FF64 on Win7 rather than FF52 on XP. By September,
when Mozilla is up to version 217, I'll update my UA to
something tasteful and unremarkable, like v. 212.

But you need to be reasonable. If you pretend Windows is
Mac or pretend IE is FF then you're likely to cause problems
for yourself. If you spoof the UA it needs to be a compatible
spoof.

Yoicks. Thanks for the detailed explanation.

"I'm still confused, but at a higher level."

tschus
pyotr
--
pyotr filipivich
Next month's Panel: Graft - Boon or blessing?

"pyotr filipivich" wrote

| "I'm still confused, but at a higher level."
|

Well, then, congratulations on your PhD.

On 6/20/19 9:41 PM, pyotr filipivich wrote:

[snip]

In any case, anyone who wants to experiment with a
browser that incorporates spyware from 2 companies instead
of just one, can now do it.

For webmasters, as I understand it, the UA is "Edg"

For the non-technically proficient, What is UA?

I'd have trouble understanding that if I hadn't actually used Edge on my
site, and looked at the server logs. UA refers to the USER_AGENT string
a browser provides to the server. The string from normal Edge contains
"Edge/". The string from Chromium Edge contains "Edg/" instead.

Version numbers are the same as in the current Chromium browser (75 and
later).

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"Dear God, let us pummel the other team into oblivion. Let us rub their
faces in the dirt and dance upon their lifeless corpses, holding our
spears aloft. In Jesus' Name, amen."

On Thu, 20 Jun 2019 18:02:03 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:
Chromium is all open source. Google Chrome is Chromium with the
addition of Google proprietary cod.

I think I smell something fishy in that remark. :-)

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...

In message , Stan Brown
writes:
On Thu, 20 Jun 2019 18:02:03 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:
Chromium is all open source. Google Chrome is Chromium with the
addition of Google proprietary cod.

I think I smell something fishy in that remark. :-)

I think eel agree with you ...
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder...

On Sat, 22 Jun 2019 03:53:33 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Stan Brown
writes:
On Thu, 20 Jun 2019 18:02:03 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:
Chromium is all open source. Google Chrome is Chromium with the
addition of Google proprietary cod.

I think I smell something fishy in that remark. :-)

I think eel agree with you ...


I think you're saying that just for the halibut.

On Sat, 22 Jun 2019 07:40:57 -0700, Ken Blake
wrote:

On Sat, 22 Jun 2019 03:53:33 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Stan Brown
writes:
On Thu, 20 Jun 2019 18:02:03 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:
Chromium is all open source. Google Chrome is Chromium with the
addition of Google proprietary cod.

I think I smell something fishy in that remark. :-)

I think eel agree with you ...

I think you're saying that just for the halibut.

Or floundering in puns.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

Gene Wirchenko wrote:
Ken Blake wrote:
J. P. Gilliver wrote:
Stan Brown writes:
VanguardLH wrote:
Google Chrome is Chromium with the
addition of Google proprietary cod.

I think I smell something fishy in that remark. :-)

I think eel agree with you ...

I think you're saying that just for the halibut.

Or floundering in puns.

Agreed. No more fish puns needed. So I decided not to take the bait...

On Mon, 24 Jun 2019 13:50:42 -0700, 123456789 wrote:

Gene Wirchenko wrote:
Ken Blake wrote:
J. P. Gilliver wrote:
Stan Brown writes:
VanguardLH wrote:
Google Chrome is Chromium with the
addition of Google proprietary cod.

I think I smell something fishy in that remark. :-)

I think eel agree with you ...

I think you're saying that just for the halibut.

Or floundering in puns.

Agreed. No more fish puns needed. So I decided not to take the bait...

Admit it. You got hooked.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

Gene Wirchenko wrote:
123456789 wrote:
Gene Wirchenko wrote:
Ken Blake wrote:
J. P. Gilliver wrote:
Stan Brown writes:
VanguardLH wrote:

Google Chrome is Chromium with the
addition of Google proprietary cod.

I think I smell something fishy in that remark. :-)

I think eel agree with you ...

I think you're saying that just for the halibut.

Or floundering in puns.

Agreed. No more fish puns needed. So I decided not to take the bait...

Admit it. You got hooked.

Perhaps. But if so would that not make the rest of you hookers?

On Tue, 25 Jun 2019 14:06:10 -0700, 123456789 wrote:

Gene Wirchenko wrote:
123456789 wrote:
Gene Wirchenko wrote:
Ken Blake wrote:
J. P. Gilliver wrote:
Stan Brown writes:
VanguardLH wrote:

Google Chrome is Chromium with the
addition of Google proprietary cod.

I think I smell something fishy in that remark. :-)

I think eel agree with you ...

I think you're saying that just for the halibut.

Or floundering in puns.

Agreed. No more fish puns needed. So I decided not to take the bait...

Admit it. You got hooked.

Perhaps. But if so would that not make the rest of you hookers?

Stick to the genre!

Or maybe, I should be more tolerant. You know, whatever floats
your boat.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

"Gene Wirchenko" wrote

| Or maybe, I should be more tolerant. You know, whatever floats
| your boat.
|

I expect there may be medication to control your
random, pointless synapse firings.

I've never understood the compulsion to make puns.
But a lot of people seem to suffer from it. I guess maybe
it's like not stepping on cracks. A kind of OCD tendency
takes over and "forces" one to voice the recognized,
albeit irrelevant, connection. Like a child learning about
ambiguity.

Mayayana wrote:

I've never understood the compulsion to make puns. But a
lot of people seem to suffer from it.

Yup. Brings on a smile and helps you avoid becoming a
grouchy old man,,,

Like a child learning about ambiguity.

I always enjoy talking with kids. Not so much grouchy old men...