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."

Not just "incompatible browsers"

[RedX]

This doesn't seem to be one of those issues where MS will claim that non-IE browsers can't view MSN because of technical incompatibilities. According to the Yahoo article, Opera is claiming that MSN is actively blocking the browser depending on what name it reports to the server. Non-IE browsers that MS hasn't chosen to block are working fine, at least according to Opera.

"Microsoft is seeing (that) it is an Opera browser and shutting it out," said Tetzchner, whose team was testing the problem Thursday. "If you change the Opera string by one letter, it is letting us in."

Re:Not for me

[MindStalker]

Well they probably hardly know or care about Konqueror. From what I've read the page specifically blocks Opera and Mozilla. If you change Opera to report it as Ophra for example. It will let it go through. So its not a block everthing but IE scheme. Its a lets not let Opera or mozilla in scheme, which I think is worse as its specifically discriminating. And not by quality either as Opera and Mozilla are the 2 non IE browser that most likly will render msn.com best.

Not all of MSN

[TrumpetPower!]

For the record, I'm using FreeBSD with Konqueror and Mozilla.

Try clicking those links at the bottom of the page. You can't get to ``Terms of Use,'' but ``Advertise'' works just fine.

b&

Right.

[fifthchild]

I gotta say, this is going too far... The legality of this move must be VERY suspect. I must disclaim here that I use Windows and IE, but fuck me if I agree with this manouvuer of theirs. Their generally shady buisness practices are sell known and never really affected the general public untill this...

To those who already posted that they 'got in' with Netscape, the article did say that only some versions were affected... Don't make me say it...

Ensuing flame war (enable asbestos monitor) aside, can this sort of activity be gotten away with? Is this legal? It's certainly one thing to corner a market, but locking non-MS browsers out of MSN and making such a wild claim as it won't render properly is a whole new level, even for MS. Can those out there actually qualified to give me an answer please do so? Those who just want to pontificate, you'll just be preaching to the quoir with me.

You gotta hand it to them, they really done it this time. Now, where did I put my RedHat boot CD..?

They can't block older Netscape Browsers

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't think of why outdated, old NS 4.77 can "render the page correctly" and the newer Mozilla and Konqueror can't

Perhaps if they block NS 4.77, they would also have to block IE3.2 which is the last 16 bit browser for Windows 3.11? Or possibly even a later explorer, like IE 4.0 -- it's only been recent when IE Explorer has reported being something other than Mozilla.

They've got it Backwards!

[ackthpt]

If the page can't be viewed, even in vanilla HTML, then MSN.com has made an amature blunder. You don't design pages to keep people out, particularly where advertisers will be barred from reaching an audience.

Sure, it stinks to high heaven like a typically corrupt monopolist move (but they wouldn't do that would they?), and consider how ISP's have been switching over to MSN as their default portal for users, this would be an error. Right? Yes, just like putting the fox in the hen house and nailing the door shut. You can count on him to look after the best interest of the chickens.

This alleged ongoing effort to lock people into everything Microsoft would be an open admission that their software and systems are so bad that they can't sell on their own merits. But they wouldn't do these things, thus admitting to that, would they?

MSN Bad code == aggressive intentions == Antitrust

[mactari]

A friend of mine asked me why Moz couldn't see the msn beta site yesterday (I'm an ASP/MS-SQL 2k developers, so I guess it's the company I keep), and I answered him the best way I knew how. I sent him the source to the page.

Later, I was moving mail from my Sent box in NS 4.7 (we're mandated to use 4.7 as our email client here at work; it's not a bad app at all), and after deleting a few, the email I'd sent to Linuxman came up. NS 4.7 renders html attachments to emails after a quick hr tag in the window, so there it was, the MSN beta site's home page -- iamges and everything short of stylesheets.

Not a dang thing didn't work. (Going to msn.com straight from NS 4.7 locks me up so I have to force quit)

If you're a web coder, you know the difference between checking DOM (if (document.getElementById()) {) vs. checking the user-agent, as mentioned in another post. This is plain ole bad code -- and an "oversite" that shows MS is once again abusing its near monopoly status in home OS, and now its near monopoly in browsers, to try and achieve another near-monopoly in servers.

Re:Not for me

[Seedy2]

The really funny thing is they claim it's beacuse the browsers don't comply with the standards. If I go to and type in http://www.msn.com it says that the page is not compilant with the standard (XHTML 1.0) stated in it's header!

knobs.

Win98 "Critical Update"

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm forced to use Windows 98 on the laptop provided to me by my employer. This morning I got a pop-up window from the "Windows Critical Update Notifier" telling me there was a critical update for win98. Clicking on update now took me to a web page that advertised Windows XP for 30 seconds before taking me to the windows 98 update page to downlaod the 480K update. I'd bet my linux box that there was no update and it was yet another advertising ploy by Micro$oft to advertise their new product. I also noticed that after the update when I open Windows Media Player it goes to the XP advertisment page now before redirecting me the WMP site. Perhaps this is the 480K "critical update" I downloaded.

Re:No no no!

[Tim Macinta]

I'd argue to never, ever do this. Why change your good browser to report that it's a bad browser?

I agree with this statement, but that's not what the author was suggesting. He was suggesting that you report it as the same browser, just on a different operating system. Mozilla on Linux is definitely not a "bad browser" and it's functionally equivalent to its Windows counterpart, so changing your Mozilla on Windows to say that it is Mozilla on Linux shouldn't be as big of a deal as masquerading as something like Netscape 4.x.

In practice, this may still cause problems with other braindead sites which will see your browser as Mozilla on Linux and not let you in. A great way to get around this would be to add a way to easily switch user-agent strings to this awesome little prefs toolbar [xulplanet.com]. Then you could surf with the correct user-agent most of the time and when you run into an annoying site like MSN that only works with certain browsers, you could easily switch to a different user-agent string just while you're looking at that site. The toolbar already lets you very easily turn on/off Javascript, Java, Pop-Ups, Onload Popups (with a slight modification that I wrote recently), and other things that usually require a browser restart or a lengthy trip through the preferences menu. User-agent masquerading would be a great addition to the toolbar (I'd do it myself if I actually wanted to look at MSN).

Re:Client identifiers

[kimihia]

With web design, one day you have to stop supporting a browser. I can't code pages for Mosaic - it's just too old.

At some point you have to say "that browser is to old". And then you work accordingly. What this means is you create two design - one fancy for new browsers, and one simple for old browsers. How do you tell them apart? From the user agent string. The UA string is fairly arbitary, but then choosing which design you display isn't a matter of life and death.

One example website I did was Oscillations [lifefm.org.nz]. It has a look at the user agent string, and if you are using Netscape Navigator 4 it will give you a crusty version. (This can be set in your user preferences on the website.)

Is creating two version a problem? Not if you mark your pages up according to the standard.

What MS has done here is completely different: it is discrimination, through and through. Not only that, but they are violating the standards of the W3C that they proclaim they follow. Look: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0: Guideline 6. Ensure that pages featuring new technologies transform gracefully. [w3.org].

Although content developers are encouraged to use new technologies that solve problems raised by existing technologies, they should know how to make their pages still work with older browsers and people who choose to turn off features.

Also to call any browser other than those written by Microsoft outdated (as their intro message does) is pretentious BS. Fact is, IE5 sucks when it comes to standard. Half the workarounds I have to write are for that crate of tripe. Complete and utter bollocks. I have nothing but contempt for Microsoft and their decision to display that message.