Slashdot Mirror
Opera Releases "Bork" Edition
David Arnesen writes "Two weeks ago it was revealed that Microsoft's MSN portal targeted Opera users, by purposely providing them with a broken page. As a reply to MSN's treatment of its users, Opera Software today released a very special Bork edition of its Opera 7 for Windows browser. The Bork edition behaves differently on one Web site: MSN. Users accessing the MSN site will see the page transformed into the language of the famous Swedish Chef from the Muppet Show: Bork, Bork, Bork!
Here you can find the press release and download link!"
Isn't that the monkey thing from lost in space?
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
as that's virtually the content of msn.com already.
I wish far more companies would respond like this, instead of instantly suing each other until one of them dies a bitter death.
Can we have an anti-goatse version? Maybe one that brings up a page saying 'Hello Slashdot newbie, you have been linked to some sick shit by someone, trust us when we say you do NOT want to look.'
Really, Im suprised anyone has gone to msn more than once
I was wondering if anyone could provide a screen shot with the Bork enabled on msn.com. I don't have a choice of a browser here at work, so I am curious what it looks like.
Maybe instead of doing something silly, They could have tried a special version that reports to MSN that it is MS Exploiter. A interesting feature could be that you could have a setting that tells the web server what ever you set it to (IE Exploiter or netscape). Might solve the broken style sheet version problem.
Science is the Real TRUTH!
Any chance we could get the Red Neck edition for browsing aol.com?
How about the h4x0r edition for Linux?
It would save me from browsing via the dialectizer http://rinkworks.com/dialect/
The Final Word
It's like putting a moose in the blender -- a recipe for disaster!
I guess that pretty much describes MSN, Windows ME or any other dubious MS product (i.e. more dubious than the rest of their products that I can't be arsed to list here).
Oh, and where did the moose/blender term come from? I'm starting to get a little worried about the mental health of the Opera team.. I just hope they don't do a strategic alliance with Joe Cartoon, you know he likes blenders!
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
Can someone post a screenshot for those of us not fortunate enough to have a windows machine?
What a silly language they have!
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
However -100 for usefulness. As a user I don't want to get dragged into a petty corporate war. I just want my browser to work. They could have spent the same time and effort in detecting if the user is going to MSN and then lying to MSN what browser it was, or better yet they could have worked with MS to correct the problem with website.
Some people have no sense of humour :(
I don't know, I guess this strikes me as petty somehow. Does anyone know if the Opera team tried to contact Microsoft to fix the problem? You know, the old "Never ascribe to stupidity that which is adequately explained by incompetence." And of course we all know that Microsoft is *never* incompetent... no sirree, not a bit! (/sarcasm)
*waits for the universe to collapse on itself*
"People should be allowed to keep midgets as pets."
- Gov. Jesse Ventura
Svenska är inte alls ett lustigt språk.. =)
I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
So Bill and Warren were talking about recent purchases, Bill says, "Oh, I just picked up 4 new golf clubs last Saturday". Warren: "Oh, how are they?". Bill: "Not bad, three of them come with swimming pools".
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
From the artice
/. and I am not an apologist for Microsoft but IIRC the source of the problem was a single incorrect figure in the style sheet. NO possiblity whatsoever of a typo there then.
The MSN site is sending Opera users what appear to be intentionally distorted pages. The Bork edition illustrates how browsers could also distort content, as the Bork edition does. The real point here is that the success of the Web depends on software and Web site developers behaving well and rising above corporate rivalry The Opera acticle is a little less direct with it's acusations. I realise this is
Can any opera users confirm if the style sheets are still messed up ? If they are they I might start subscribing to the conspiracy theory, but really his smacks of a childish attempt to grab attention. I would guess the Netscape, Moz and Phoenix share of the market is of much more concern to MS than Opera
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
This is truly a great story and a great event. I am really looking forward to the others, such as the omniweb "Yup Uh-huh" version that translates MSN to the "Yup yup yup yup yup yup yup, uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh" language from Sesame Street. And the version of Konquerer that translates gnome.org to the language of the Dozers from Fraggle Rock.
These are gonna kick ass!
How are you going to keep them down on the farm once they've seen Karl Hungus?
You can send this letter to Opera Software using their feedback page.
Why bother.
For those of you who want more Swedish Chef, be sure to visit Google's Bork, Bork, Bork search page.
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
Who here thinks their incentive to do that has been increased by this move?
Cheers,
Ian
Maybe you didn't find it funny, or you even thought it was offtopic, but the parent is not a troll. I'll see your ass in M2.
OK, nobody understanding how juvenile this is, I understand. After all, this is Slashdot. But this sets a bad precedent. This is the first time (that I'm aware of) that a browser manufacturer intentionally made a browser that does NOT show what the server is sending to me
Uhhhhh, but it's totally alright for Microsoft to intentionally make a browser show something WRONG?? You need to get a fuckin clue and get your tongue out of M$'s ass. Or if you like we can just draft you and use you as Cannon Fodder.
How can you trust a browser that intentionally doesn't show you what you asked for? You have no idea if you're getting what you're supposed to be getting when you go to *any* page. This is exceeding unprofessional, and violate everything that a browser is supposed to do. I guess that's the point they were trying to get across.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
Microsoft is serving up gobbly gook language to opera browsers as well.
What are you talking about? There are many browsers which does this. Have you newer used lynx, or some of the browsers made for blind people which talk insted of displaying anything?. Infact there don't exists ANY browser which display the site that the server send, because the server does NOT send any site. It send a html document which is a description of the CONTENT of the page not a description of HOW to render it. Just try to visit msn.com internet explore, and then with a wap phone. This you will get an entire different view of the same information.
www.squirm.net/bork.jpg
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
Well, I followed the links in the story to download, and got an Opera version 6.0.4 download that does NOT Bork MSN.com.
Talk about disappointment!
"Send an Instant Karma to me" - Yes
It's kind of funny how the "information wants to be free" crowd is so quick to support censorship of companies that they don't like.
Besides, what would an ISP gain by blocking microsoft sites? Is it worth pissing off thousands of customers to gain the respect of a few slashbots?
Can't imagine that this functionality is standards compliant... naughty Opera! ;-)
MSN.com violates everything that a web server is supposed to do.
This is exactly what they are trying to prove: any browser manufacturer could do this kind of things and everybody would lose in the end. Here is a quote from the Opera press release:
So they are fully aware of the consequences. They are releasing this as a joke to show how silly this could be and also to raise the awareness of this potential problem.
-Raphaël
Best. Browser. Ever.
Carousel is a lie!
How can you trust a browser that intentionally doesn't show you what you asked for?
Sigh. If you install the special Bork edition what do you expect? Juvenile would be when you roll it out to all your users as the default browser.
I clicked on the press release and Opera's website hung my IE4. No joke. Seems a bit hypocritical to me!
Come on, it's a joke!! :-)
"The Bork Edition"
A special edition with a built in joke. Clearly marked with the intention spelled out. It's not the "production" version, that would've been a bit much.
Unless you use wget and vi, no browser is "showing you what the server is sending you". Every browser interprets the HTML differently and displays the page differently - that (to some extent) is the whole point of html. Sure this is an extreme example, not many browsers change the textual content of a site (would you be as upset with a site like babel which tries to perform a useful translation?), but it's a special version of the browser designed to make a very important point in a very effective (and funny) way.
It's not a big deal, if you don't like it don't use it.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
They specifically did it for one page for a limited time on a specially named release of the software to show that 1) this is juvenile, and 2) both content providers and browser writers can be juvenile and it could get an arms escalation. With the point being: nobody should do this to begin with.
Yes, it's mildly unprofessional. In my book, that's okay, because professionals today would either 1) sue them or 2) do it back without saying anything and CYA in a long EULA. It's rare that a company tries to make their point with a little bit of wit, probably because it'll be lost on some people.
I've got to download this just to have it around! This is a true work of art. :)
-=fshalor
I think that suing people for trivial matters is also juvenile.
This isn't being advertised as Opera's main browser. It's being advertised as an offshoot, special-purpose, no-other-really-good-use browser. If they had put this into their main browser, then yes, I would agree with you, but this was done as a joke. It's no worse than any parody done on Saturday Night Live. In a month or so, we'll all have had our laugh and have forgotten the entire event.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
...cheer up !
Personally, I would like to see more browsers come with a built in borkifier that you can switch on at will. And a Mr.T-inator.
I'm off to search mozdev.org...
Someone is wrong on the Internet!
Everyone seems to be ignoring the fact that there is no longer a problem with MSN and Opera. Just loaded MSN in Opera 7.01 - no problem, full content, no -30px cutoff.
-josh
Yes, I know this. A server can send whatever it wants. Lots of web servers vary content per user, per browser, etc. This is the first instance I've seen on a browser INTENTIONALLY showing the wrong thing.
http://www.amoebasoft.com/madcamel/bork.gif
Thanks rdesktop!
1) MS has monopoly (practically) on web browsers.
...
2) Opera is a competitor.
3) MS is using it's webiste (a different product) to maintain it's monopoly.
Isn't this almost the definition of illegal monopolistic practices? I think the definition is slightly different, like "Using a monopoly to further your business in another area." They're "Using another area to further a monopoly."
Hmm... Perhaps if IE was distorting the Opera web page, it would be the exact definition.
But then again
1) MSN is not a monopoly on ISP's (or portals?)
2) IE is a monopoly on browsers.
3) Making opera apear broken will make more people use IE.
4) IE's default homepage is MSN.
5) MSN is benefiting from IE's monopoly and unfair business practices against opera.
So perhaps that fits the definition more closely?
(can't help my self...)
6) ???
7) Make money
Thanks rdesktop!
Well that would probably be a bug in IE4 since, according to the W3C, that page is perfect XHTML.
Suck figs.
I guess they're plugging into some code similar to this 'translator' version which is online (http://kerry.lothrop.de/chef/) and does the same.
Thank to Babelfish I'm learning a little German. But they have no Swedish!!!! Arghh!!!
Oh man, I love this sorta stuff...
Best use of Swedish Enchefalyzer..EVER.
Hee hee, I love OSS developers.. Like this would ever happen in a publically-held company. Ahhh, no.
Bowie J. Poag
In Preferences:Network:Browser Identification. Unfortunately, MS IE 6.0 is the default, even in the splendid Bork version. (Which I'm running now, I'll never upgrade my Opera again! ;-))
Just downloaded and installed. Very funny.
The Help->About Opera menu is also borked.
-ted
The stylesheets they are sending are designed that way to fix a list layout bug on Opera 6.
Opera Software fixed that bug in version 7 and that is why the layout looks wierd in that version using those stylesheets.
It is not a deliberate attempt by Microsoft to attack the Opera browser, they just haven't got around to updating their Opera stylesheets for version 7.
The fault here lies with Opera software for their formatting bugs, not with MSN for trying to work around them.
For gods sake, somebody port this to Linux quick!
This guy is way out there
You're obviously not too bright.
Is a browser that detects HTML errors in the pages it reads. If it finds any, it will display/fix up the pages just like all current browsers do, but it will also add a big banner at the top of the page that says "WE DO NOT KNOW HOW TO WRITE WEB PAGES PROPERLY."
The Opera guys seem to be quite media-savvy, but not without irony. Go to the webpage of Håkon Wium Lie and discover what the did there. Håkun Veeoom Leee-a indeed... :D
What are you talking about? How the HELL will this inconvenience Microsoft in the LEAST?
This would be cool, having translation skins, kind of like the look-n-feel skins. Sure, it would be useful say if you wanted to automatically translate whatever language you're viewing into your own language. But then you would have the ability to use fun language skins, like the Bork, or the Miguel Web Filter found at fatchicksinpartyhats.com
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
Note the comment about the TechNet problems as well.
So when will the Linux version be out? Will it handle all Microsoft web sites in the same manner? I hope so...
I get this message whenever I try to access A web page about MP3 vs. Winamp features from the Media player:
a sp:
http://windowsmedia.com/9series/detection/NSPage.
We're sorry. This Windows Media 9 Series content is only available to be viewed using Internet Explorer.
Learn more about Internet Explorer.
Clicking on the link and reading the press release, it clearly states:
MSN now allows access to users of Opera 7, but is still targeting and sending users of earlier versions a broken page.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Ok, the Funny grandparent post is now Insightful, the Complaining parent post is now Funny, can we have a new surreal moderation option? +5 Fish!
Microsoft Free Fridays
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
Look what it does to the Britney Spears video from Windowsmedia.com.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Another cute, funny, and "non-lawsuit" response was recently made by Google. If you search for a domain name which has been doing a ton of referer log spamming - for example this domain or this one - a random "SPAM" page shows up near the top of the results.
:)
This is definitely intentional on Google's part, as the offending referer spammers have no relation to the SPAM-oriented pages (and certainly are not mentioned or linked there). It's like a digital middle finger to the referer spammers.
Gotta love when the geeks take precedence over the lawyers in the corporate food chain
MS still haven't fixed msdn.microsoft.com.
Try clicking their Downloads link.
So many Opera hostile pages, so little time...
Peder
Microsoft will respond to to this insult by releasing "Microsoft Internet Explorer Yosemite Sam Edition", which will deface the opera corporate website in a witty manner. Except it'll have a bug, and will also deface the KDE webiste. The konqueror team will respond in their next version by replacing every 'c' on the MSN website with a 'k'. Microsoft will take this as an assult from the open source community, and will render the mascots on both the KDE and Mozilla sites with comedy spectacles and moustaches. Lynx users will be served graphics only versions of MSN with lots of frames. Mozilla will respond in kind, by rendering MSN upside down. Applewill by default not be able to provide a browser which does not offend anybody, and will be reluctantly drawn into the frey. It will be the browser wars all over again, but this time more bitter, and somehow, more hilarious. It will escalate out of control, until the entire internet is rendered and defaced in a comical fashion. Internet Obfuscation Protcol (IOP) will become an ECMA standard, but each browser will maintain its own incompatible version. Everyone will go back to using phones and fax machines.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
This may not be a good thing. Maybe Microsoft will now turn around and bite Opera for distorting its page.
For all those who called this "childish" or "unprofessional" or "juvenile" or any such names--firstly, RTFA, and secondly, lighten up, they didn't put this in their main version. It's a special purpose, no-other-good-use offshoot of the main version. You can still download the regular Opera without this "feature." If they did put this in their main version, then I would agree with all of you, but they didn't. This is merely a parody, no worse than any portrayed on Saturday Night Live. In a month or so, we'll all have had our laugh, and forgotten the entire event.
So, if I may so repeat myself, lighten up!
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
Another benefit to being a Mac user and also avoiding MSN like the plague (that it is). .exe?
If they are anti-M$, why is OperaBork only available as an
I don't use Opera and I don't watch Oprah.
Did anyone consider that this whole problem may have started with a bug in MSN's support for Opera?
Obviously they have custom stuff they do if they detect the browser is Opera. I seriously doubt someone at MSN set out to disable Opera; they probably put it in to fix what was sent to Opera either to work around a bug in a previous Opera or to fix some of their own noncompliant stuff so it would work with Opera.
Either way, somewhere along the line it got broken. This seems much more likely a scenario to me - that someone screwed up - than that someone set out to specifically make Opera look bad. Wouldn't they be more interested in making Mozilla look bad if anyone?
Perhaps someone from MSN can release a statement on this and clear it up..
- Steve
I have so much more respect for Opera right now.
/syle
This is teh funniest thing i've seen a company do in response to BS tactics like this...
i almost died when i read the borked out version of msn.... opera definitely deserves kudos for this one!
<Translation>Christina Attacked (By Bad Taste)
Why her pants won't survive combat; plus other celeb fashion dos & don'ts</Translation>
Sounds so much more interesting in Bork!
Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
(Part of) /etc/namedb/named.msn:
/etc/named.conf.
;).
www IN A 127.0.0.1
msn.com. IN A 127.0.0.1
Plus the appropriate entries in
Problem solved
While I applaud Opera's sense of humour, and I also am no fan of Microsoft I just wonder if this is all rather misplaced.
People, as a species, are not in the very least intelligent, and all advances that mankind enjoys required the divine inspiration of genius to accomplish anything at all. Incompetence and stupidy are par for the course for the animal.
While I personally would like to believe in Microsoft's duplicity on feeding Opera browsers bad pages, it is far more likely that this is a case of stupidity or incompetence or both. Mind you, it is possible that Microsoft has deliberately done this dastardly deed, but for those who believe in conspiracy theories, there are far better ones out there.
If people are going to use this as an excuse to prevent IE browsers from accessing their webpages, I can only ask why didn't they start doing it sooner? Microsoft has done far worse deeds in the past for which anybody with a moral outlook could take policial action against. Such minor deals as this hardly even registers on the radar of Microsoft's turpitude.
I heartily endorce people refusing to permit the IE browser from viewing their web pages, possibly with a banner supporting Open Source/Software Libre. From my perspective, such a position is a legitimate anti-monopoly political action statement. But if you are moved to act by this minor infraction, if it was indeed a deliberate move on the part of the Evil Empire, your own moral compass was out of whack for too long to begin with.
But there is much also to be said for another old saying, "the straw that broke the camel's back."
This best part of this is that there are NO ads in the borked version! A truly FREE version of opera 7! :)
Opera 7 has very sophisticated rendering functions for small screens. For example Nokia uses Opera on its communicator and it's press releases like this one, which provides the Redmond paranoiacs with the willies.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Isn't that a risky step to take? After all (I guess) they have a copyright on the content of msn.com, and Opera is actively defacing their site.
Won't they (i.e. MS) sue?
my
Edit your hosts file, and map goatse.cx's host name to yourself (localhost), or the site of your choice. In windows, you'll find the hosts file either in \windows or windows\system (I think, it was a while since I was on NT). If necessary you'll have to create the file yourself (which shouldn't be a problem since there's a sample hosts file, hosts.sam, courtesy of Microsoft).
It will look something like this:
127.0.0.1 goatse.cx
Bada-bing! Problem solved!
It seems that this worked, and MSN finally send the correct (if there's such a thing) CSS to Opera. I'm using 7.01 (not borked).
I guess that they where worried if this get to the news or something, no evidence anymore...
Check out the copyright stuff in 'about Opera'..
"
Zee oothur ooff thees sufftvere-a is Defeed M. Gey. Bork Bork Bork!
Cupyreeght (c) 1991, 2000, 2001 by Loocent Technulugeees. Bork Bork Bork!
Permeessiun tu use-a, cupy, mudeeffy, und deestriboote-a thees sufftvere-a fur uny poorpuse-a veethuoot fee-a is hereby grunted, prufeeded thet thees inture-a nuteece-a is inclooded in ell cupeees ooff uny sufftvere-a vheech is oor incloodes a cupy oor mudeefficeshun ooff thees sufftvere-a und in ell cupeees ooff zee sooppurteeng ducoomenteshun fur sooch sufftvere-a. Bork Bork Bork!
THIS SOFTVERE IS BEING PROFIDED "ES IS", VITHOOoT ENY IXPRESS OoR IMPLIED VERRENTY. IN PERTICOoLER, NEITHER THE EOoTHOR NOR LOoCENT MEKES ENY REPRESENTETION OoR VERRENTY OoF ENY KIND CONCERNING THE MERCHENTEBILITY OoF THIS SOFTVERE OoR ITS FITNESS FOR ENY PERTICOoLER POoRPOSE. Bork Bork Bork!
"
In other news, slashdot users all agree, The Bork edition makes MSN usable.
Opera, the Bork Edition does what MSN editors have failed to do, make MSN a site that people want to visit.
Joe M Soft said, "Wow after the Bork Edition was released, web hits increased over 10000%. I can't believe all of the positive comments I have recieved."
In other news, Microsoft signs the Swedish Chef to be Editor at Large.
Gator/Claria is Spyware.
Hell yeah! Block Hotmail!
No sig
Wget and vi? Pah! I just telnet to port 80, like God intended us to do!
I downloaded and installed ow32enen2656b_bork.exe but the MSN site displays correctly. Do I have to change some setting? Does it only work in the registered version?
FUNNY AS HELL !!!!!!!!
Somewhat off-topic, but I've always wondered why /. people are so enamoured with Opera? It is a proprietary browser that you have to pay for. /.ers, on the whole, are opposed to proprietary stuff. So, why abandon that credo when it comes to a web browser?
While Opera does have its merits, I don't like the fact that I have to pay for it. Why pay for a browser when I can download several different ones for free? Also, a lot of pages I go to aren't rendered correctly in Opera. While it is most likely the fault of the page writer for writing bad HTML, I like the feature in IE that interprets the HTML of idiots into a good page.
I've been blocking hotmail, msn and every other M$ property/network on my MTA at home ever since M$N/Qworst pulled that stunt forcing Qworst's residential users to use LookOut!, OuchLook! Express or Exploiter. They get a friendly bounce message pointing 'em to a web page that explains why they've been bounced.
Ee reelly loove thees veerseon oof MSN..
I didn't know they did the same for Slashdot comments? Or is it this MS Explorer that I'm using now...
When I first read this headline, I thought that it meant that using this version of Opera would cause the Senate Judiciary Committee to come to your house and harass you for hours on end, eventually prohibiting you from using your computer! Guess I should watch more Muppets and less CNN.
Here we go again. It's pretty sad that this story has gotten so much attention, because it would seem that it's more a case of Microsoft not caring than it is malevolence on their part. Hey, great publicity for Opera, though.
MSN does not send out an Opera-specific stylesheet. It doesn't! Actually, it sends Opera the generic site.css sheet, which will also be sent to browsers that return nothing but a load of garbage (NOT the Oprah test) for their user-agent strings. Oh, and don't forget corky browsers like Netscape 4.7, which still have a creepy amount of market share. It should be noted that MSN looks perfectly fine in NS 4.7, which leads me to believe that the negative right margin that flakes out in O7 is actually meant to account for one of NS 4.7's numerous, unsightly bugs. Other posters have said that this is to account for a bug in Opera 6's rendering, but I haven't tested this myself. Oh, and this same style appears in the Netscape 6 specific stylesheet with no ill effects. Figure that one out.
Why does the "Oprah" test allow Opera to receive the IE 6 stylesheet? Because the words "MSIE 6" are in there, and the word "Opera" is not. MSN most likely does test for the word "Opera" first, but sends that browser the generic site.css sheet, because the MSN developers, probably having relegated Opera to that bin of browsers they couldn't care less about, figured the generic sheet would be good enough.
Sloppy, yes. Vindictive? C'mon. What's their motive? I would hardly call Opera--a closed-source browser that people actually have to pay for if they don't want to be annoyed--a threat to Microsoft's market share.
I am proud and privileged to have been a part of this. I got an email from Hakon just a few days ago, asking if they could use my JavaScript encheferizer (ported from someone else's Java version) on "one of their pages". I had no idea what they intended to do with it, but nevertheless said sure! No problem.
I'm rolling on the floor laughing my ass off now! Haha! You're my heroes!
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
My first thought was Robert Bork, who was appointed by Regan to the Supreme Court but had his confirmation rejected by the senate after an expensive PR campaign by liberal groups.
I suppose it's appropriate too, since a lot of conservatives feel Bork had his record unfairly distorted, much like MSN probably feels about it's page with the Bork Edition, and Opera does about the MSN page itself.
I have blog like everyone else
Det var ju inte allt för länge sen man var liten och försökte härma engelska...
//T
(english translation : bork bork hurley burley shurley booork bork bork )
Or: the server that singles you out, and doesn't show you what you asked for.
"How can you trust a Service that intentionally doesn't show you what you asked for?... This is exceedingly unprofessional, and violates everything that a server is supposed to do."
Doesn't Opera have some "Identify as IE6" stuff like Konqueror? So why not just switch to that setting for MSN?
..but rather an css-transformation that works the same way for internet explorer as it works for opera. I dont know for other browsers though ("view source" gives the plaintext, the same I get when I access the page with links) ;)
I'm already seeing the "Opera 7.02 Bork-edition [en]" in my logs.
I suspect there will be much fun poked at this in the Microsoft lunch rooms and around the water coolers.
All the best,
--Bob
I don't see any difference. Once you've seen one pink alien cow you've seen them all.
KFG
Some people have no sense of humour :(
Would't it be great if <irony> and <sarcasm> tags were implementet in any browser out there?
A paragraph with irony tags would then be displayed as:
--- Warning ---
This paragraph may contain humor you don't understand and is not displayed by default.
If you want to read it anyway click here
--- End ---
Of course, the same could be done for <sex>, <drugs> and <rocknroll> to Make The Web Safe For Your Children(TM).
If I didn't already own licenses for Opera on Windows and Linux, I'd buy it today just to reward this sort of behavior.
Better grab a copy of the bork edition before it gets (cease && desist)ed.
For some reason this has never worked for me :(.
It also renders the 'About Opera' page in Swedish Chef. screenshot
I made a quick write-up about this on my site, including a screenshot of Bork in action!
http://www.joestoner.com/bork.php
I am not afraid of the slashdot effect! My provider probably is though...
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
Opera forgot to include the ad banners in the free version. This is basically a full commercial version of opera that fucks up msn. I'm keeping! :)
They've "Borked" the Help About page as well .. kinda funny reading ... :)
The "about" page is also done in "Bork" on the latest opera release.
Why didn't they just call it the Björk complex? ha :D
From the source, "In support of freedom of choice in browser software, this web site is Microsoft-Free on Fridays. Please use any browser except MSIE to access this web site today."
Translated, "We fully support choice. Except the choice that you have made. Make a different choice! Just be sure that we support your choice (Because we fully support your right to choose. Unless you make a choice we don't like)."
I hope that module has a bug that causes it to delete your MBR. Anyone running it deserves at least that.
This is posted with Mozilla 1.2 with KDE 2.x on Mandrake 8, and it saddens me that I may be in some way associated with idiots like that just because I support Free software!
I've seen this news reported on several fairly mainstream sites (at least far more mainstream than /.) You see "Opera and Microsoft arguing over CSS sheet" is a lot less interesting to most people than "Opera borks MSN homepage. See the screenshots here!" More people will know of it, and why, this way...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
What normally happens when one fraternity pulls a prank on another? WAR. It's normally a conflict of escalation, the next prank more outrageous than the last.
So I ask you... Who is in a position to do more damage in a prank war between IE and Opera? Not that it isn't funny, just rather one sided if things get out of hand.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
> This is the first time (that I'm aware of) that a
> browser manufacturer intentionally made a browser
> that does NOT show what the server is sending to me.
No, the first time was when Microsoft introduced content-type sniffing.
sheesh.
Schrodinger's cat is either dead or really pissed off...
>This best part of this is that there are NO ads in the borked version! A truly FREE version of opera 7! :)
Nope. It's just a new thing for Opera 7. It won't display ads for the first 14 days.
Hasn't it already been shown that the problem with MSN was due to a fix in the stylesheet for an earlier version of opera(v6?) that had a bug in its handling of list indenting. and that MSN was serving the same stylesheet to v6 and v7 browsers where the problem had been fixed, and as a consequence getting it wrong... this was therefore almost certainly not a sabotage attempt, just a bugfix gone wrong.
+1 Funny
I think Opera should retain it as a regular feature: a regular protocol handler. KDE could implement your K replacement feature as 'kk:'. Then, add pipelining to the mix... the web can never be boring again:
kk:bork://www.microsoft.com/
AKK YOUK BKSE BKLONG T0 UK...
Goatse(.cx) would be funny with or without the URL, but admittedly, the URL is part of the joke. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. FWIW, the post made it to +5 for a little bit there. I think I may find out what the ratio is of moderators with a sense a humor to moderators without by the end of today.
GF.
I am being repressed by Opera software!
Do you use Opera as a Browser?
Uh, no...
Do you use the MSN web site?
Uh, no, but...
Are you swedish and/or a chef?
No, but, but...
Then please shut the f**k up!
Is this related in any way to the story about a little guy that lives in a blue world? And all day and all night and everything he sees is just blue like him inside and outside? :P
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
I don't know about anyone else here but I smell a publicity stunt on Opera's part. Hey, everybody, look at us! We're a tiny little browser company getting stomped on by big ol' meany Microsoft! They make our browser render a page incorrectly!
I can't imagine that Microsoft would worry enough about the 12 people that use Opera that they would go out of their way to make their site render incorrectly. Why wouldn't they also do this with Mozilla/Netscape browsers which make up a much, much bigger market share?
where you could donate a user-specified amount of bandwidth to continously DoS attack Microsoft servers?
Take your tongue out of Bill's ass, please. It's unseemly.
[] I have been duped into clicking a goatse.cx link on Slahdot becasue I'm naive and didn't know any better and now I want to dig my eyeballs out with a spoon.
[] I have deliberately and knowlingly clicked on a goatse.cx link on Slashdot, perhaps even numerous times, because I'm a sick puppy who likes to seek out such tasteless rubbish.
[] I have never seen goatse.cx from a Slashdot link becasue I'm bright enough to know better about these juvenile pranks.
[] I saw Cowboy Neal on a goatse.cx link.
"...MS, however, hasn't fixed it in 14 days. Go figure."
Hey, cut them a little slack. Remember, they're focused on security now. I'm sure that's where all the developer time goes...;)
- If we aren't supposed to eat animals, then why are they made out of meat? - Steven Wright
I think this was a good idea. The press coverage this will get will make Microsoft look like incompetent assholes. It's a company making light of a monopoly trying to crush them. I usually don't take sides, since I don't really care who wins (ie, if Pepsi died tomorrow I would start drinking Coke), but it sorta makes me want to cheer for the underdog.
I think it will also get a lot of geeks who were reluctant to use it based on experience with older editions to download it again just to try it (and thus have the opportunity to remove that bad taste in the user's mouth).
Exactly. And with a stunt like this, I would be very surprised if it doesn't find it's way to some of the larger "mainline" media sites.
Also, I have a feeling that Microsoft itself will react pretty quickly. The technical "trick" they played was pretty simple-minded, not unlike the "Swicher" add that was mentioned in another article here. Microsoft caught some major flack for that one, after some Slashdot folks discovered that the anonymous switcher was really an employee of the advertising company that was doing the add. I have a feeling some people got canned for that little stunt. Besides, there probably are some Opera users who reakky do need to get to stuff on MSN, and hopefully, now their pages won't be broken.
In the end, it's another black eye for Microsoft. It won't make much difference in the short run, but who knows what effect this will have in the long term?
(Well, for one, I just downloaded the latest free version of Opera on my Linux box, and may end up paying for the commercial version if I like it better than Galeon. I'm probably not the only one who did this because of this article...)
Your Servant, B. Baggins
I have fucking had it with all this "voice of moderation" karma whoring.
IIRC the source of the problem was a single incorrect figure in the style sheet. NO possiblity whatsoever of a typo there then.
Okay, let me get this straight. You develop a completely seperate css file to work against the user agent string sent by Opera browsers, despite the fact that Opera can easily handle the default stylesheet. So your characterization of a single incorrect figure is incorrect:
My research indicates that you are off by two thousand six hundred twenty six characters. In this completely fucking seperate stylesheet, you copy shared values by hand rather than copy/paste and place -30px (a value which, in the css universe, is insane) rather than 23px for the standard production stylesheet. This is a typo in your universe?Can any opera users confirm if the style sheets are still messed up ?
From TFA:
Moderators, please, stop mistaking skepticism for insight.
Why didn't they just post Swedish Chef screen captures? That would be worth a peek.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Ferseeun inffurmeshun
n eezeshun
e d veendoosm erks
o ments und Setteengs\JLungffeeeld\Eppleeceshun Deta\Oopera\Oopere7\pruffeele-a\ceche4
s
Ferseeun
7.02
Booeeld
2658 Bork ideeshun
Pletffurm
Veen32
System
Veendoos XP
Jefa
Soon Jefa Roonteeme-a Infurunment ferseeun 1.4
Regeestreshun inffurmeshun
Regeestered
Nu
Neme-a
N/A
Oorgu
N/A
Peths
Prefferences
C:\Ducooments und Setteengs\JLungffeeeld\Eppleeceshun Deta\Oopera\Oopere7\pruffeele-a\oopere6.inee
Sef
C:\Ducooments und Setteengs\JLungffeeeld\Eppleeceshun Deta\Oopera\Oopere7\pruffeele-a\oopera.veen
Buuk
C:\Ducooments und Setteengs\JLungffeeeld\Eppleeceshun Deta\Oopera\Oopere7\pruffeele-a\oopere6.edr
Oopera durectury
C:\Ducooments und Setteengs\JLungffeeeld\Eppleeceshun Deta\Oopera\Oopere7\pruffeele-a
Ceche-a
C:\Duco
Meeel durectury
C:\Ducooments und Setteengs\JLungffeeeld\Eppleeceshun Deta\Oopera\Oopere7\Meeel
Help ducooments
C:\Prugrem Feeles\Oopere7\Help
Ploog-in pet
C:\Prugrem Feeles\Oopere7\Ploogeens
C:\Prugrem Feeles\Oopere7\Prugrem\Ploogeens
C:\Prugrem Feeles\Netscepe-a\Cummooneecetur\Prugrem\Ploogeen
Thurd perteees
Thees prudooct incloodes sufftvere-a defeluped by zee OopenSSL Pruject fur use-a in zee OopenSSL Tuulkeet. Cupyreeght © 1998-2001 Zee OopenSSL Pruject. Ell reeghts reserfed. Bork Bork Bork!
Thees prudooct incloodes cryptugrepheec sufftvere-a vreettee by Ireec Yuoong. Cupyreeght © 1995-1998 Ireec Yuoong
Zee Independent JPEG Gruoop
Zee PNG Defelupment Gruoop, Glenn Runders-Pehrsun, Undrees Deelger, Gooy Ireec Schelnet und Gruoop 42, Inc. Bork Bork Bork!
Jeun-luoop Geeelly und Merk Edler
Jemes Clerk
Iberherd Mettes
Noomber-tu-streeng und streeng-tu-noomber cunferseeuns ere-a cufered by zee fullooeeng nuteece-a:
Zee oothur ooff thees sufftvere-a is Defeed M. Gey. Bork Bork Bork!
Cupyreeght (c) 1991, 2000, 2001 by Loocent Technulugeees. Bork Bork Bork!
Permeessiun tu use-a, cupy, mudeeffy, und deestriboote-a thees sufftvere-a fur uny poorpuse-a veethuoot fee-a is hereby grunted, prufeeded thet thees inture-a nuteece-a is inclooded in ell cupeees ooff uny sufftvere-a vheech is oor incloodes a cupy oor mudeefficeshun ooff thees sufftvere-a und in ell cupeees ooff zee sooppurteeng ducoomenteshun fur sooch sufftvere-a. Bork Bork Bork!
THIS SOFTVERE IS BEING PROFIDED "ES IS", VITHOOoT ENY IXPRESS OoR IMPLIED VERRENTY. IN PERTICOoLER, NEITHER THE EOoTHOR NOR LOoCENT MEKES ENY REPRESENTETION OoR VERRENTY OoF ENY KIND CONCERNING THE MERCHENTEBILITY OoF THIS SOFTVERE OoR ITS FITNESS FOR ENY PERTICOoLER POoRPOSE. Bork Bork Bork!
Zee Ilektruns
Undreey Ruzelook
Neece-a Grepheecs(TM) by Pål Syfertsee, Flutt Eltså
Oopera Sufftvere-a is greteffool tu zee gruoops und indeefidooels ebufe-a fur zeeur cuntreebooshuns. Bork Bork Bork!
Cupyreeght © 1995-2003 Oopera Sufftvere-a ESA. Ell reeghts reserfed. Bork Bork Bork!
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
Microsoft has a history of resorting to it's bag of crappy tricks when dealing with products & services that have enough value to threaten the market share of it's own offerings. This behavior manifests itself very consistently- Consistently enough that tech companies should start using it as a metric. Hell- You could put it in your business plan as criteria for success: "... we will guage our product to be a success in the market place when the Microsoft Corporation has attempted to steal or destroy it...". Opera ought to be congratulating itself on a job well done.
Opera's page describing the MSN problem doesn't display properly in Netscape 4.7 -- but it does display properly in IE5.0.
You liver must be the size of a Buick, to be *that* drunk.
Håkon,
This is very smart marketing in an industry in which marketing is usually very primitive.
As others have said, you are making your point without going to court. That's admirable.
Microsoft is so abusive that I wrote an article about the abuse so that I would have some way of explaining it to my customers: Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going.
LOL! At one time, the Swedish chef was my favorite TV character. Although I was an adult, and didn't often watch TV, I watched the Muppets more than the children in the neighborhood.
Be sure to give credit to whomever wrote the original Swedish chef software. I don't see that now on your web pages. Also, notice that the press release about the Bork edition says, "Pal A. Hvistendahl, Marcom Director". Shouldn't this be "Marketing Director"? If you mean MARketing COMmunications, that isn't an advisable word because it communicates only to people who think about marketing all the time.
Ha ha ha ha ha
ho ho ho ho ho
hee hee hee
hum
phew.
guess you had to be there.
there is an IE easter egg that calls Opera engineers weenies?
For the love of $DEITY, loose != not win!!!!!
Bork... I always thought that was the sound made by a fart in the bathtub.
I can't believe it's not lard!
Try following my URL for screen shot links if you want to see what they were up to (and still are up to - the MS sites still don't work 100% yet).
what a stupid idea..
If you have downloaded and installed the Bork edition already, go to Help -> About Opera.
:).
Good to see they can laugh at their own expense too
The ______ Agenda
I would probably sue if you were spreading lies about me like that.
The truth doesn't care what I think.
The Bork edition does not have ad banners! Talk about extra features. :)
I know there are a lot of Microsoft bashers here, but why did this get modded up? Every sentence is incorrect.
eg:
"The problem was both Opera v6 and v7 rendered the page that was sent to Internet Explorer browsers perfectly."
Wrong. Opera v6 rendered to page adequately, but not exactly the same as IE on the same CSS. Because Opera v6 had a bug whereby it magically added 30 to a margin value, ending up creating an unwanted gap on the bullet points.
Not exactly a big deal, and I would have just left it assuming it would be fixed next version. But this just shows that Microsoft did the right thing and tested using various browsers. As for correcting the issue, thats probably due to a rigid designer who required the page to look the same on all browsers.
"Opera v7 renders the page that was sent to v6 just fine"
If you mean IEv6 then yes it does, BECAUSE THE BUG WAS FIXED. If you meant Opera v6 then no it doesn't, it moves some items 30 to the left making them move partly out of the visable area.
"The only thing that can't be rendered properly is a special page that is only sent to Opera v7 browsers that aligns elements by -34pts"
Just plain untrue, the work around CSS is sent to all user agents containing "Opera". God knows why they didn't tie it down to Opera v6, but I strongly suspect laziness, it's much easier to match on Opera, then on grabbing the version string. Maybe someone just plain didn't think, who knows.
"Opera wasn't broken yet MS decided it needed to be fixed (as is fixing a cat). "
Opera v6 _was_ broken. But MS did a badly implemented work around.
I mean come on people, Microsoft has done a lot of bad things, but this isn't one of them. If they get nothing but shit shoved at them when they go to the effort of playing nice, but make a tiny oversight. Where is the incentive for them to try again?
Do you want msn to be just another "optimised for Internet Explorer" web site? If Microsoft goes to the trouble of being compatible then you can ask other web sites why the hell they aren't.
I am extremely disappointed with Opera's response to this issue, they have sugar coated the existence of the bug in Opera v6, and make out it is all MSN's fault. Essentially turning a "feature" into a desperate media attention grab.
What about the users? What if they don't want the MSN website in Swedish Chef? And I was so close to making Opera my default browser over Mozilla. Guess I'll stick with OSS Mozilla, which doesn't screw around with the contents of other people's web sites.
PS: Watch this get left to rot because it doesn't bash MS.
Because typos like accidently hitting - don't ever happen.
Before you go and assume MS was doing this because people were running Opera, just take a deep breath. Now, if you want something to be angry, realize that MS probably didn't fix up the style sheet for Opera yet, despite being contacted.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
After all, the "post comment" page seems to be sending crap to Opera.
Of course, it appears to be sending crap to all browsers--not just Opera specifically. It fails the w3.org validator spectacularly.
Kudos to the Opera team for handling this situation with humour and grace, while still managing to make a valuable message in a manner where it will grab attention. It's nice to see fights addressed with humour and rhetoric rather than lawsuits.
It's just like a fascist dictatorship, without the punctual rail service!
A slasdot user suggested something very similar to this in the last story on this issue. And personally, I think the Opera folks are being fantastically polite by using bork, rather than pubjames' idea. Translating the page to German and back would make MS look much, much worse.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Look at and mod the parent of this post UP. It is maybe 1 in 500 that actually tells you what went on.
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
As long as the browser rendered the pages perfectly to standard that would be cool. Maybe if it detected errors in it's own code it could parse the output to the w3 standard checker program for that page to crosscheck itself before putting up such a notice.
Eat at Joe's.
I started Opera 6, Opera 7 and IE 5.5 in Windows and grabbed all the stylesheets from http://www.msn.com. Here is what I get:
- Opera 7: <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://i.msn.com/m/8/c/site-win-ie6.css"
/>
- Opera 6: <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://i.msn.com/m/8/c/site.css"
/>
- IE 5: <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://i.msn.com/m/8/c/site-win-ie5.css"
/>
Here's what I get using Opera 6 for Linux:<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://i.msn.com/m/8/c/site.css" />
For grins, I decided to see what they "normally" give out:
[wee@hostname wee]$ lynx -source 'http://www.msn.com' | grep stylesheet />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://i.msn.com/m/8/c/site.css"
MS is still trying to bork Opera users, even though they claim they aren't. And it's not a typo: the stylesheets are very different. If they'd just give all Opera users the same sheet, then everything would be fine. I'd think again about defending MS on this one.
I personally think that there should be more pie fights and fewer lawyers. It's incredible that Opera has the balls to release the bork version. It's one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time and I'm all for it. I'm even paying for Opera 7, even though there isn't a Linux version yet (which I'll also pay for).
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
whats the point? does this somehow affect ms? i dont think it does. the only people who can use this are windows users who will NEVER have the use for msn pages. woop de doo. those people dont care anyway. yeah, its funny, but so what. i should make a web browser that changes every page to yiddish! then i'd make slashdot! rubbish.
The point is that MSN is deliberatly sending Opera users bad .CSS.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
The ads are there. They just turn them off for a few days as a "being nice" gesture.
I am a registered Opera user, I just haven't gotten around to registering this install since the last nuke from orbit OS disaster and the ads are there as I type this in the Bork edition.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Truth. -1 Flamebait. Yep, this is Slashdot alright.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
... This 'autotranslate' would be a great feature for Opera 7.02, IMO, if it translated all websites... :p
The server was compensating for an Opera CSS bug. The server was trying to allow users of a faulty browser to view their pages. Opera 7 JUST came out and fixed their bug (When then broke to Opera 6 specific pages) If the Opera engineers hadn't been out to lunch on version 6, none of this would have happened.
Quote:
"The ability to create ways to preprocess pages before they display would be a welcome addition to Mozilla's capabilities."
"TS is based on the idea of a very simple, open API, and the use of various modules which users may install and configure through the preferences panels. These modules would receive the webpage before it is fully parsed, and transform it as they are programmed, passing the transformed webpage either to the next module (they may be chained), or to the rendering/parsing engine. Naturally, users may want to run more than one module at a time, perhaps one that acts as a HTML filter to remove hostile tags (like BLINK and EMBED), and another as a simple lingual translation engine. Similarly, users may wish for modules to be applied to only some webpages, perhaps those in a foreign language or with a hostile PICS rating, and not other. "
http://www.mozilla.org/blue-sky/extension/199805/p reprocess.html
Mozilla team seems reluctant to implement this, do they fear something from sites hosting advertizing ? ... with no more ads, popup, useless side columns or top rows. Oops: unsubscribed user has the ads gone on slashdot! )
I can already imagine my favorite pages customized on the fly by Mozilla with my preferences, or even colaborative preferences.
( cnn, zdnet,
From NINENINE the FLAMING HOMO.
What a bunch of morons you people are. MSN put in those 30 pixel "errors" to work around a bug in opera version 6. Version 7 doesn't contain the bug, and MS hasn't yet added special detection for opera six versus seven. This isn't "targetting" or trying to break a page for opera, they were doing the best they could to work around its bugs
That's almost cool enough to make me switch from Phoenix. Almost.
I have the easiest solution to this MSN problem.
Hotmail always redirects the client to MSN on logout, and this annoyed the hell out of me and my wife. So, with squid, I use a redirector to:
s|www.msn.com|www.lemonde.fr|;
I never hit MSN, and therefore never have this problem. Though, trying to use Hotmail with a non-mickeysoft browser has always been an issue. To anyone stating that Mickeysoft does not intentionally thwart the use of other browsers, I say you're full of it. I've had too many problems for it not to be intentional.
Which is, of course, MS "Borg Edition" of a browser. All of them.
I zink zat zis ees a veeery fuuuny ting
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
I hope that this problem is brought to more light. In fact, I wish that a legal solution can be made.
This problem actually hits home for me as I had to work on a product with an embedded (3rd party) browser. Since our browser had a small user base, I had no leverage whatsoever to reach MSN about fixing this problem. And let me tell you, my customers got pissed! Probably lost a few accounts in the process.
There's a very well documented bug on Mozilla's website which aims at this very issue (Gecko was one of the browsers that originally did not pass the user-agent filter). Luckily, Mozilla had some pull to get these problems resolved through MSN. However, by 'resolution', I mean that it was only fixed only for Gecko... every other small browser out there is still "broken".
Basically, any site that uses user-agent sniffing is irresponsible in my eyes. In fact, user-agent sniffing doesn't solve *anything* as developers will only alter the user-agent string to match IE's. MSN is not the only perp, but with their monopoly, they should really know better. Further, Independent web creators who do this are just without clue.
It's a modbombing in reverse!
I've never gone to msn.com before, but from the wgot files mentioned in another comment, on Opera's site, and looking at the msn.com page now, Opera 6 (6.1, build 271) most definitely does render both the MSIE and Netscape versions in a way that looks normal--unlike the one which msn.com feeds it which forces text to be pushed too far to the left; either mixing with another column, or just not being shown (as is the case with the white text on white background resulting from shifting the text over from the right column).
One other thing to add to this fray, Hotmail is part of MSN. At least, it goes through the same user-agent filtering that the main MSN website does.
It's one thing to say that your users can't go to MSN, and a whole different thing to say that your users can't check their email. This problem deserves more attention!
Using Opera and Linux myself, why would I even go to msn.com??? Congrats to Opera, however, for not being stuffy corporate aholes!
Anyone imagined a visual impaired person trying to hear a Text to Speech of the msn site...
TNOP (take no offense, please!)
NEOCA - Custom LED Flashlights
I purchased Opera for Win and Linux at 6.1 (or so) a few months ago. Guess what, when 7.0 came out, they want me to buy it again. 7.0 looks nice, but this is the same type of behavior that seems to piss everyone off about M$. There is a lot of positive press on /. ref Opera, but I don't quite get it. I quit using it and am looking at Mozilla or Gecko, etc.
Today Microsoft Corporations (MSFT) released Debork 1.0
Targeted at european enterprises, their expected sales are Euro 4.7 millons for this fiscal year.
Please see www.microsoft.com/debork for more info.
NEOCA - Custom LED Flashlights
Now, a message box popping up with a message explaining that users should expect difficulties when running MS sites would be more instructive...
Microsoft bashing is not pointless, it has a strong case, as you see.
Using Opera on MS's Technet seems to show the same kind of behavior... If you have it present it self as opera you get a list of links. Change it to ANYTHING but opera and you get the real page (although the IE5 page is still the "best" page).
Typical MS...
But this gets talked about a lot. I'd bet 100 times more people hear about this than heard about the probably intentional "-30" CCS coding error that is the original problem.
Which puts a 100 time bigger pressure on M$, and as good an impact on M$ as they could hope to have.
On the one hand, we have posts pointing out the apparent egregiousness of the Microsoft "fix" for an alleged Opera "bug".
On the other hand, we have posts pointing out that Opera did "in fact" have a bug which Microsoft needed to fix with a special style sheet.
When is someone going to analyze these two positions and determine which one is correct?
WAS THERE A BUG IN OPERA WHICH WOULD EXPLAIN WHY MICROSOFT DID WHAT THEY DID OR NOT?
And I'd like Opera to address that point directly since they are posting here...
I personally don't know enough about style sheets or whatever to comment, but I would like to know the FACTS here.
Having said that, the Bork version of the page is hilarious and justifies itself.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Relax. The Swedish chef has always been very popular in Sweden.
Maybe we should be better at taking offence, but so far we are way behind world leaders inthis regard.
I saw some comments on earlier discussions about this that MS was just trying to work around a bug in an earlier version of Opera, and that there's no way in the world that they would intentionally break Opera's rendering. But the press release denies this. Why doesn't somebody at Microsoft who was involved with this feature come forward and explain the situation? If we don't hear from them, the only conclusion is that they are too embarrassed at being caught at this kind of cheap trick to show their faces.
Try putting Slashdot into the validator:
Validate Slashdot.
Do you honestly expect that everyone sees the same pages you do, just because they entered in the same URL or clicked the same link?
The fact is, there is (and has been for some time) a disparity between what an IE user sees and what a Netscape user sees. The same can be said of Netscape and Amoeba, or even different versions of the same browser. For example, the IE 4.0.2222 that came on the Win95 CD that you could install separately didn't even support frames and tables properly.
Because of these issues, it is (more or less) a common practice to attempt to distinguish browsers from each other, and serve similar (but not identical) pages to differing browsers. Further, with PHP and DHTML (server-side) and the joys of javascript and vbscript(browser-side), these pages can be made to look different.
Back in the day when the "supercookie" vulnerability in Media Player was found, one of my client's servers was configured to identify the Windows installation by the Globally Unique IDentifier, and that was cross-referenced with a profile that the user willingly provided upon visiting the site. Finally that profile's browser-selection option was matched against the browser reference string that was sent in the page request, and the user was prompted if there was a discrepancy. If there wasn't, the page sent to the user was chosen according to what browser the server identified.
And thus we didn't force gobble-de-gook onto our Netscape Users just because we provided Active Desktop Support for our IE users, just as our IE users didn't get confused by an icon on their status bar indicating errors on the page because we supported SmartUpdate through Netscape.
Our solution was a little more convoluted than necessary, yes, but it also allowed us to track individual systems/users' browsing, and we could then email them with links to stuff on the site that they hadn't seen yet.
Now, surely you wouldn't trust my client's server/service, because I told you what we'd deployed and that we tracked our visitors. But that system has long since been taken down in favor of static pages.
All that said, I don't think it's appropriate to lambast web hosting companies for trying to give you more functionality, even though they have to identify your browser and/or OS to prevent unexpected errors from creeping in.
Now, don't get me wrong, though. If my client used either of the SmartUpdate or ActiveDesktop stuff to try and force spyware on the users to harvest email addresses, or sold the addresses freely supplied in the profiles, I would have eliminated the ability to collect it. Nefarious activities are unacceptable in any case, and we the public are to only assume that the nature of singling out Opera to feed it an (assumed intentionally) incorrect page was to inconvenience the user to switch. After all, Microsoft has been known to pull this stuff. Who remembers MS blocking Mozilla, other browsers from MSN nigh on a year ago now? MS has demonstrated that they're not above kicking their competition and forcing users to IE.
That should put to rest the theory that it's a bugfix on MS' part to maintain compatibility with an old browser--we at /. prefer to not believe in such crackpot theories. Instead, we assume that known troublemakers are still causing trouble.
And as it's made news all over the Internet that MSN is again causing problems for another browser, we simply find the Bork a humorous retaliation. Hey, you can't fault us for rooting for the underdog, can you? :)
Finally, since the logic behind the Swedish chef hasn't yet surfaced on /., I'll explain it. We hackers adopted a bit of slang, changing "broken" to "borked". Some script kiddies even say it "b0rk3d". So, in a fit of rage, developers sometimes say "This thing is borked! Borked borked borked!!!" You'd be surprised just how much that sounds like the Swedish Chef saying "bork! bork! bork!" And thus was the starting impetus for the hidden joke behind the Swedish Chef.
Are a dolt?
RTFA!
You have to specially request this browser that taints MS's page! So therefore you ARE asking for it to change the page!!
--DarkFrog
If the dead rise again, we're going to have some serious population control issues.
It still looks broken in Opera v. 5.12. eom
...because I'd love to have an idea of how many users went to the effort of borkifying MSN. I now I will; it's the only way to extract some usefulness out if that portal.
Now imagine if they send special HTML to block it:
Deer MSN veeseetor,
Thees browser ees not supported. Pleese-a downloed Internet Explorer, eet's free-a!
bork!bork!bork!
A good system would be to use some activeX to change the registry entry for user agent string for IE to return "Opera" instead of "IE" and put it up on lots of banner adds offering free pron if you install it.
As of Friday, 5 pm EST (US) the page still renders improperly in Opera 5. Obviously, it is not just the 'newest version' which has problems with MSN.
So, they are probably using the language filter "chef" to filter the web-page just before displaying it.
I once heard of a sys-admin that wanted to get revenge on someone else, so he ran all his outgoing mail through one of these filters. Hilarity ensued!
Just to give you an idea, I'll re-run my comment through the "jive" filter, a rather politically incorrect filter which is supposed to simulate black urban-speak. Imagine doing this to MSN!
[here goes]
So, dey are probably usin' de language filta' "chef" t'filta' de web-page plum befo'e displayin' it.
I once heard uh a sys-admin dat wants'ed t'get revenge on someone else, so's he ran all his outgoin' mail drough one uh dese filters. 'Sup, dudelarity ensued. Right On!
Just t'give ya' an idea, I'll re-run mah' comment drough de "JIBE" filter, a rada' politically inco'rect filta' which be supposed t'simulate brother urban-speak. Imagine doin' dis t'MSN. Right On!
f u cn rd ths, u r prbbly a lsy spllr.
MSN is just using browscap. It may be valid to complain about how well they maintain their browscap.ini, but it's a little disingenuous to say they are purposely singling out Opera.
The problem with browscap.ini is that it functions essentially like a massive nesting of if-then-else conditions and string matching patterns. The subtleties between the many user agent strings makes it difficult to ensure that every version of every browser on every platform is going to fall into the expected identification. What's technically happening at MSN is just that the logic of browscap "falls into" a match with older Opera capabilities when "Opera" is in the string. When you change it to "Oprah" the logic falls into IE6 as the closest match.
Take a look at http://www.garykeith.com/data/browscap.ini for an example of what a typical browscap.ini has to deal with these days. This isn't the version MSN is using, but you can see why the example of changing "Opera" to "Oprah" and leaving the rest of the user agent string looking like IE6's could cause the IE6 style sheet to be returned if MSN's browscap.ini didn't have the Opera 7 strings defined properly.
In the big picture of web authoring, browscap is a good balance between ignoring browser differences and attempting to hand-code all the logic you would need, every time. That's why even PHP has adopted browscap.ini despite its origins in Microsoft's ASP. But whether it's a Microsoft site or a PHP site, it still has to keep its browscap.ini updated, and that's not terribly easy to stay on top of.
I have a hard time believing that Håkon Wium Lie isn't familiar with browscap and how these oversights can happen, but I'm sure he's also aware that browcap.ini is just technical enough that the press and MSN executives aren't going to be able to address the issue at that level. When you oversimplify an explanation of what's happening, you wind up saying that MSN is intentionally sending Opera the wrong style sheet, and Opera Software is trying to play politics with this oversimplification. 0
.As much as I hate Microsoft, there is a relatively innocent explanation for this behavior. I'm guessing that Microsoft uses browser detection that is something like the following pseudocode:
...
code:
if(IDstring contains MSIE)
{
browser=ie;
}
else if(IDstring contains "Mozilla")
{
browser=mozilla;
}
if(!browser||IDstring contains "Opera")
{
browser=other;
}
if(browser==ie)
send ie stylesheet;
else if(browser==mozilla)
send mozilla stylesheet;
else
send generic stylesheet;
The result of this code is that Opera gets the generic stylesheet while "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 5.1) Oprah 7.0 [en]" gets the IE stylesheet because the algorithm mistakes it for IE. So I don't think that Microsoft is taking aim at at Opera, it's just assuming that Opera isn't capable of handling the IE stylesheet. Obviously this is not true and is unacceptable. However, I believe that Opera has misrepresented Microsoft's motives and Microsoft's response will probably result in negative PR for Opera.
They use a javascript when detecting the client's UserAgent:
!--
function BrowserData()
{
this.userAgent = "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; MSIE 5.5; Windows 98) Opera 7.01 [en]";
this.bot = false;
this.browser = "MSIE";
this.majorVer = 6;
this.minorVer = "0";
this.betaVer = "0";
this.platform = "Other";
this.platVer = "MSIE 5.5; Windows 98";
this.getsNavBar = true;
this.doesActiveX = false;
this.doesPersistence = true;
this.fullVer = 6;
So it means that Opera is so-called "other" browser and therefore is not supported.
I just fired up wget using some other user agent strings, namely for Netscape 4, Netscape 3 and "Red Bull". With some interesting results:
The site.css file is obviously regarded as lowest common CSS abilities and delivered to any browser they cannot detect using the user agent string. Obviously they send out the site.css to any browser they either cannot detect or they can detect but don't support with a special stylesheet.
[Which leaves some criticism to your method of investigation. By sending the user agent "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 5.1) Oprah 7.0 [en]" you can't prove what you want to prove since you're still implying you're driving a web browser that's based on Mozilla/4.0 with the comment "MSIE 6.0". No wonder they're giving you the MSIE 6.0 stylesheet unless they got further evidence it's not an MSIE 6.0. You should have taken further steps into investigating their modus operandi.]
So their CSS behaviour isn't targetted at Opera at all. They send out their flawed CSS (presumably "optimized" for Netscape4) to any browser but their own breeds and Mozilla.
With Opera 5 their cached *broken* msn page looks quite fine
Opera 5 had similar CSS problems which I reported as a bug report. Answer from Opera.com:
"The bug is the inability of Opera to combine 'margin-left' and 'text-
indent'."
So I assume, MS has "optimized" its site for Opera 5 and not updated its optimization ever since. With Opera 5, http://www.msn.com looks quite fine and all the content is visible.
As much as I like Opera, I dislike articles like this one. Please beat Microsoft with facts and ongoing standardization, not with polemics.
Opera needs to seriously get over itself!
Opera's lousy research failed to turn up that MSN sends the exact same "error" to Netscape:
ul {list-style-position: outside; margin: -2px 0px 0px -30px;
Sheesh.
BORK B0RK BORK!
alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork
"If you loved me, you`d all kill yourselves today"
Spider Jerusalem
What's more disturbing is that MS thinks and apparently getting away with the. Use our browser or dont surf our sites.
:)
Fortunately most users that use opera are hopefully smart enough to stay away from MOL or AOL for that matter
unless you don't identify as opera.
What I truly don't get about this whole Microsoft against Opera deal is that what does Microsoft have to gain by not letting Opera users visit MSN.com? It's not like you have to pay for IE, it's already included in Windows. What does Microsoft care if people use a different browser?
Waste your mod points here folks. Truth hurts.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Is Opera run by 12 year old children? The people responsible for this should be fired at once.
...american car manufacturers selling cars that refuse to start the engine if fat people attempt to drive.
The thing is, the stylesheet MSN served to Opera 6 wasn't needed in the first place. Both O6 and O7 render the MSIE stylesheet just fine.
If you'd have actually read the press release, you would have seen this tidbit:
MSN now allows access to users of Opera 7, but is still targeting and sending users of earlier versions a broken page. This treatment is completely unnecessary, as the page would look the same in Opera as in Microsoft's own Internet Explorer if it had been fed the same information. [emphasis added]
If there was any bug, it's that O6 was more forgiving than O7 of non-sensically coded stylesheets such as the one MSN was serving up.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
my liver is *almost* as big as kathleen fent's ass.
Just taking a stand against M$ like this deserves /.'d effect for all your "game machines" :)
Even if this Opera style sheet is fixed, given Microsoft's history ("DOS isn't done until Lotus won't run.") shouldn't there be an FBI investigation. The style sheet coder could be questioned under penalty of perjury to determine if it was an accident or if anyone at Microsoft discussed doing this intentionally. The only way this sort of thing will ever stop is if Microsofties start going to jail. Didn't the Justice Department threaten Microsoft officers with criminal sanctions if they got caught sabotaging software again?
What's the bet that in a week or two, Opera will release a statement detailing the number of downloads of their borked up version of Opera? I switched from Opera to Mozilla some time ago, and it wasn't until now that I've been inclined to install it again. This is enough of a joke that I'll leave that version installed, and use it from time to time... :-)
IANAPP*, but if I was doing browser detection for MSN, it'd work something like this:
:-)
...) should just ignore the stuff they don't understand and show the content.
- If it's Netscape or IE, version 4 or earlier (i.e. a browser I *know* fails to degrade gracefully), send a dumbed-down stylesheet
- If it's Opera 5 (wasn't that the one with the indenting bug they were working around?), send a hacked stylesheet which fixes it (just Opera 5 though, not <=4 or >=6)
- If The Boss says so, and the browser is IE6, send extra proprietary junk so it looks marginally nicer (hey, I'm trying to think like MSN here
- Otherwise (default action), send a standards-compliant HTML4+CSS or XHTML+CSS page that does exactly what I want; anyone using a browser that's old *and* obscure probably knows what they're doing, if a new browser doesn't show it properly it's the browser author's fault, and "limited" browsers (text-only browsers, PDAs, screen readers,
The design of HTML is meant to be such that browsers that don't understand a particular feature (like CSS) can ignore it and get a "gracefully degraded" version. The only ways to get a browser to actually show things *badly* are:
- Bugs in a particular feature (someone mentioned text-indent and margin-left not playing nicely together in Opera 5; MSIE doesn't add up border, margin and width quite right)
- Half-implementations of standards (Netscape 4, basically.)
IMO the first priority when implementing a website's stylesheets, once you've decided what they're going to look like should be to make an "ideal" version which is valid and standards-compliant, and does what you wanted; hacks to make it still look nice in specific browsers should be optional and only done for those specific browsers (so browsers the designer doesn't specifically support, like Konqueror, Safari and "Oprah", get sent the "ideal" version).
My own site deliberately links in the stylesheet using a method NS4 doesn't understand (the @import feature in CSS), so NS4 gets no stylesheet at all. This makes it look boring, but at least it's legible, which makes it better than last time I tried to feed NS4 stylesheets - I gave up when inline images started overlapping my text, in a valid page which IE 4, an early Mozilla, and (IIRC) Opera rendered perfectly.
If you visit my site with a browser that knows about @import, you get the full-CSS version, which has no different content, but looks prettier. (I write the stylesheets using the CSS2 spec, with Mozilla as my "previewing" browser, then test in Konqueror and the W3C CSS and HTML validators occasionally, plus MSIE when I can be bothered).
* I am not a professional programmer
Ver're in Sveden!
Banaaaana!
The so-called "desktop metaphor" of today's workstations is instead an
"airplane-seat" metaphor. Anyone who has shuffled a lap full of papers
while seated between two portly passengers will recognize the difference --
one can see only a very few things at once.
-- Fred Brooks
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...