MSN Blocks Mozilla, Other Browsers [updated]

k_hokanson writes: "I was just going to check out some tasty news articles, with my trusty Mozilla, at MSN. but what do I get when I go there? A nice little message telling me that 'in order to display this page properly', I have to get the latest version of IE! And no, there's no option to display it incorrectly. " Enough people have submitted this story that it can't be an isolated case;) Thanks, Microsoft. Here's the story on Yahoo!. CT: telling konqueror to lie about its User Agent causes the page to render correctly save the background which is the wrong color. Update: 10/25 23:19 GMT by T : kuwan writes "Looks like Microsoft was getting too much heat. CNet is reporting that Microsoft is backing off on their browser block. I'm only wondering how long it will be before they do it again with some other excuse as to why we all need IE."

Wow! I Just Had the Same Problem With Slashdot!

[journalistguy]

Using IE to access /. , all I got was a blue screen with a message that read:

Hi! How are you? I send you this Debian Potato in order to have your advice.

I'm sure glad I had Mozilla. A mere seven crashes, two freezes and a cookie later, I was able to read some News That Matters.

In other news

[wiredog]

You need to use AOL's browser to use AOL!

Re:It's just to fool statistics

[crumley]

Make sure that the form of your user agent string is right. Here's a fun one someone sent to an email list:

lynx -useragent="Mozilla (compatible; MSIE 6.0b; Windows NT 5.0; Bill Gates
eats worms)" www.msn.com

Reply - In Portugese!

[ForeignLanguageTroll]

Quando este flooder do crap parecer ter escrito um programa rather interessante, não é muito original entre flooders do crap. Um pode ter o mesmo efeito copí uma história da notícia e afixando isso.

Quem sabe que evil lurks nos corações dos homens? Snuggles que o urso amaciando da tela conhece.

Porque é que meu fígado está unido a meu braço pelo velcro?

Chops de carne de porco para a venda! Barato!

I commend them for making this move

[FarHat]

I have been a long time (signed up for it about a week after it opened) hotmail user so i cant change that easily now. And I hated it that after every time i signed out it would send me to that crap and heavy MSN.com page. Now I can avoid it cleanly. For all those people trying to get around the restriction, in the name of everything holy, WHY?

FarHat

Re:Workaround....

[iabervon]

Actually, what makes their story rubbish is that (1) it doesn't accept the W3C HTTP Validator and (2) the splash page doesn't even *pass* the validator.

Re:Workaround....

[Longstaff]

I'm running Mozilla on Linux and it wouldn't let me in...

I will never use their site again!

[Eugene O'Neil]

Not that I ever used it before, mind you...
But it's the principle that counts!