Fallen Tech Blog

According to the HTTP/1.1 specification (RFC 2616, section 14.43) ( http://www.w3.org/ ):

14.43 User-Agent

The User-Agent request-header field contains information about the user agent originating the request. This is for statistical purposes, the tracing of protocol violations, and automated recognition of user agents for the sake of tailoring responses to avoid particular user agent limitations. User agents SHOULD include this field with requests. The field can contain multiple product tokens (section 3.8) and comments identifying the agent and any subproducts which form a significant part of the user agent. By convention, the product tokens are listed in order of their significance for identifying the application.

_{(emphasis by me)}

Despite this quite clear definition, a LOT of websites use the User-Agent in an attempt to identify what capabilities a browser has and deliver it to them. Some might say that Microsoft's usage (abuse) of the User-Agent was the cause of the mess of all this we have today when they made Internet Explorer identify itself as "Mozilla" when it clearly was not. When you think about it though, they most likely did this in order to OVERCOME these already incorrect uses of the User-Agent by web "developers" (as this mozilla page from '98 ( http://www-archive.mozilla.org/ ) also implies).

I use the following true, correct and legal User-Agent for my most used browser, uzbl ( http://uzbl.org/ ):

Uzbl/aa8c2e459cd035f13144c21400f8db1c47a15a36 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US) Webkit/1.1.6 (A browser built upon the highly renowned web standards compliant and secure Webkit rendering engine that is the heart of several open source web browsers, including Uzbl, Midori and Android Webbrowser)

(the "aa8c2e459cd035f13144c21400f8db1c47a15a36" is actually the git commit (source code version if you will))

User-Agent sniffing is SO bad, that my initial User-Agent (shown below) led to too many sites simply not displaying AT ALL (errors, blank page, etc):

Uzbl/aa8c2e459cd035f13144c21400f8db1c47a15a36 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; A browser built upon the highly renowned web standards compliant and secure Webkit rendering engine that is the heart of several open source web browsers, including Uzbl, Midori and Android Webbrowser)


So, whenever I come across a page that I notice does a User-Agent sniff (for example they say "we are sorry, you need to be using IE or Firefox to view this page") I contact the webmaster and inform them of their error. This leads to also no change and in most cases no response.

In the event a response IS received after I contact them, it is usually in the form of "We are looking into this" or something similar to the hilarious "If you tell us your User-Agent, we can add it to the list of working User-Agents".

I have not been hugely affected by this and in the event that a site really doesn't work properly due to this, I will simply go elsewhere and "blacklist" that site (after trying to help them of course).

I have noticed very recently however, a HUGE difference in pages I visit. An extreme number of sites have seemingly started User-Agent sniffing all starting around the same time. As time moved on, I noticed it was largely (but not only) wordpress ( http://wordpress.org/ ) blogs. So what was the symptom of these "sniffing fails"? "Mobile" versions of sites. I visit Amazon ( http://amazon.com/ ) and am presented with a rather plain page:

This is quite different compaired to the standard amazon page:

This page is displayed by the EXACT same browser, passing all the same header variables with the acception of the User-Agent, where it was changed to:

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-au; rv:1.8.1) Gecko/20061010 Firefox/2.0


The effect is the same with all those Wordpress blogs. So why's it happening I thought, until I realised, they are all sniffing for 1 simple word... "Android". When they detect a User-Agent containing "Android", they go into this "Mobile" version.

I emailed Amazon to let them know, but got the standard "1-click" reply that's rather common with Customer Support these days:

Hello,

Thank you for your comments about using Amazon Anywhere with your mobile device. In addition to our large selection, one of the benefits we try very hard to offer our customers is convenience. I'm very sorry for the inconvenience you experienced while shopping at our store with your device.
...

Of course, they didn't actually READ my comments judging by the "... using Amazon Anywhere with your mobile device ..."

The funniest thing about this is, that even without any adblock or noscript plugins in my browser, I actually get a rather lean browsing experience as a result of this

Perhaps the solution would be to build a mobile device called "Mozilla"

I read an article today entitled "iPhone 3GS Gets Jailbroken, Hack Available Online" ( http://www.pcworld.com/ ). A single paragraph really stood out for me, namely:

"However, the purplera1n jailbreak will free your iPhone from the limitations imposed on it by AT&T and Apple. After jailbreaking, a user will be able to customize the iPhone with home-screen wallpapers and third-party ringtones. But the biggest advantage of jailbreaking is the support of unapproved apps such as iBlackList (blacklists and whitelists for contacts) and many others."

Upon reading this I thought simply, "so, hang on, people are actually truly dumb enough to pay $879 AU ($695 US at time of writing) ( http://store.apple.com/au/ ) for this?!".

You can't run your own applications. To me this is unbelievable. I recently purchased a Palm OS based phone for cheap (off eBay, couldn't get one new ( see my earlier "Good Products are hard to find" post ) and I have so much cool freeware on it it hurts! I've got a RSS/Website feed reader, email client, file manager, PDF viewer, dictionary, thesaurus, complex alarm clock, speech synthesiser, movie player (XVid, Quicktime, etc - you name it), Automatic call recorder, SMS Scheduler, Complex SMS auto-replier, C Compiler and Interpreter, VNC client, SSH client, Source code editor, Text editor, Barcode scanner, Midi editor, XMPP client, Google maps, IRC client, Programmable Remote control, Web browser, a GB/NES/SNES (yes, SNES, as in Super Nintendo Entertainment System)/SMS/SMD etc Emulator and about 4 gazzilion games. This doesn't include the built in apps either, these are just the FREE (as in cost) apps I installed. Stick that up your App Store.

People who own iPhones, just like those who own iPods, deserve what they've got.

For me though, the best bit is "After jailbreaking, a user will be able to customize the iPhone with home-screen wallpapers and third-party ringtones". Riiiiight, so out of the box, you can only have a wallpaper or ring tone that Apple sells/gives you?!

To be fair, with this new model they've added MMS support and copy/cut/paste, voice memo's too! - Apple REALLY lead the pack in tech don't they. Although, they are still missing some features Telstra's $99 AU ($78.55 US at time of writing) T6 ( http://shop.telstra.com/ ) phone has like a built in FM radio, video capture, expandable memory using microSD and proper Bluetooth that works with other Bluetooth devices, not just Apple ones. Oh, and the Telstra T6... I bet it supports having your very own background.

Disclaimer: Please note that the iPhone does actually come with a GPS receiver built in and 16Gb (albeit a hard drive not memory) whilst the T6 only has 45Mb but this comparison was more about showing what a rip-off the crap iPhone is and not how great Telstra's crap T6 phone is.

OK seriously, I've been using the Internet since ... well lets just say I used to use BBS's until the Internet was available so from pretty early on.

I watched with interest as various companies started purchasing domains and putting near blank place holder pages up. This was exciting because at last there was a way for computer nerds to interact with these mass creatures.

I remember dreaming of never having to speak to an annoying under-trained person on the end of a phone for 45 minutes, just to find out something simple.

Sadly... now in 2008... these company websites are no better than they were back then!

Optus, Telstra, they are ALL useless crap.

I went to the Optus website about a year and a half ago tried to sign up for a pre-paid mobile phone account. The site was buggy and useless - I couldn't continue through the process and even if I could have, it kept telling me I wanted a business account even though I selected personal. I checked it out the other day - still broken.

Telsta are no different. I went to their website about 5 months ago to change to them as I'm sick of Optus but I couldn't find their plans and charges anywhere on their website... on THEIR website. In the end I had to look them up on a third party site. Can you imagine, going to a grocery store and asking how much they charge for a loaf of bread and they tell you "you'll have to ask the coffee shop down the street who buy some from us, they'll know".

I haven't found one company who's website is useful at all (excusing indexing type sites such as yellow pages etc). Some I've been to don't even have their address/phone number on them - USELESS.

I'm so glad everyone is now on the Internet - simplified life so much. pft.

CONTINUED FROM Car Accidents are fun! (part 2 of 3)

When we last left our story, I had just arrived at the Police station...

Once there, after having another officer make jokes about me, I was informed that I was under arrest for "Being Drunk In A Public Place". Once I knew this, I asked if I could have a breath or blood test, in order to prove or disprove the accusation.

Read more »

CONTINUED FROM Car Accidents are fun! (part 1 of 3)

When we last left our story, I had just tried to put my head through a windscreen...

The Fire Brigade and Ambulance soon arrived and had well and truly started inspecting the back seat passengers when the Police arrived.

The Police started to question Bruce as I and another passenger (Bob) waited patiently. Another Police car soon arrived and out got a Sergent. Mistaking him for a protector, server of the people, super hero, nice all round helpful guy, I approached him...

Read more »