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."

Comments

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&

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?

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. 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).