Alternate Browsers

[MarkN]

Also the forums at http://www.mozillazine.org are probably the best user support ones on the web. Less egotistic than Opera's at any rate.

Of course, I'm sure that all those people who need help with Mozilla Firebird can ask the Mozillazine member who uses this avatar:

[MarkN]

http://uabar.mozdev.org/

The main site: http://www.mozdev.org/
Firebird Help: http://texturizer.net/firebird/

[Dr Lobster*]

mp3sfinder.com hasn't worked for months!

[DJGM]

http://uabar.mozdev.org/

No! User Agent Spoofing is most definitely NOT the way to go. If a website is blocking your Mozilla based browser, and/or
says it requires the use of Internet Explorer, you should file a Tech Evangelism bug report at BugZilla, instead of making
your browser tell fibs to webservers, masquerading as something it isn't. UA Spoofing causes inaccurate browser stats
on webserver logs, and therefore persuades dumbass web developers to continue blocking non-Microsoft browsers.

[Pete]

http://uabar.mozdev.org/

No! User Agent Spoofing is most definitely NOT the way to go. If a website is blocking your Mozilla based browser, and/or
says it requires the use of Internet Explorer, you should file a Tech Evangelism bug report at BugZilla, instead of making
your browser tell fibs to webservers, masquerading as something it isn't. UA Spoofing causes inaccurate browser stats
on webserver logs, and therefore persuades dumbass web developers to continue blocking non-Microsoft browsers.

which is why I said to try and and if it works tell the webmaster a few pages back.

[MarkN]

http://uabar.mozdev.org/

No! User Agent Spoofing is most definitely NOT the way to go.

I agree with you 100%, but I was merely highlighting that someone has written a tool which can spoof the user agent, if this is what the user wants.

However, let's look at the case of NatWest OnLine Banking (and RBS Digital Banking). This service is infamous for blocking Mozilla. What should use the customers of NatWest OnLine Banking do?

a. Visit the site in Internet Explorer - not suitable, considering that many people use Mozilla in the first place because of their dislike of IE (or use of another OS)

b. Close their bank account - do you honestly believe that the average user is going to close their bank account and move to another bank just because NatWest doesn't like the User-Agent string sent?

c. Spoof the user agent - in an ideal world should never be done.

d. Use their local branch/telephone banking instead - defeats the purpose of signing up for Internet banking

I am not (intentionally) trying to promote user agent spoofing, but in some cases, what other real alternatives do NatWest customers (and others) have? All they can do is complain as much as they can in the hope that something is done.

If a website is blocking your Mozilla based browser, and/or
says it requires the use of Internet Explorer, you should file a Tech Evangelism bug report at BugZilla,

I take it that the visitors should also complain to the site involved?

instead of making your browser tell fibs to webservers, masquerading as something it isn't. UA Spoofing causes inaccurate browser stats on webserver logs, and therefore persuades dumbass web developers to continue blocking non-Microsoft browsers.

Of course, you could always spoof the user agent, take a screenshot and sent it to the webmaster to prove your point... this is about the only way I feel User Agent spoofing should be used for most sites.

[Jenny]

I notice that people earlier in the thread were talking about Mozilla 1.4 and 1.4.1, well I've been running 1.5 for a couple of days and it's excellent, you can tweak it to your own preferences to a much greater extent than IE and it's very user-friendly.It does have a lot of bells and whistles I'll probably never use, but there are some nice features like the cookie manager which I've got set up to magically transform all cookies into per-session ones, and of course the pop-up blocking (I'd got rid of most pop-up advertising in IE anyway by redirecting literally hundreds of adservers using the Hosts file, but adding new servers to the list was an ongoing task, this is better).

[Cheese Head]

Well, the WLAN has gone down here in my humble abode, so i'm at my dads PC so I can't download my choice, Mozilla. but IE on this PC is f u c k e d, so im stuck with Netscape 6.2, free of some magazine CD.

Thanks for your help here folks. but until a wlan point is fixed i cant do much about it

[DJGM]

Ah, yes . . . Netscape 6.2 . . . the first actual decent release from the Netscape 6.x series.
At least it's not Netscape 6.0, or 6.01. They were just abysmal and very, very premature!

Netscape 6.2 may not have tabbed browsing or popup blocking, but it's still better than IE!