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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!"
Some people have no sense of humour :(
I thought the Opera team was from Norway? But the again.
Check it out here:
http://poriss.com/bork.gif
www.squirm.net/bork.jpg
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
Hey, it's just a special edition, you're not forced to use it and the normal download link will give you a normal version so your not dragged into anything.
Working with MS to correct an attack on the Opera browser is like, euh, like asking MS behave well and rise above corporate rivalry.
Well, thats what Opera asked...
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
For the record, Konqueror already allows this. It hase come in usefull for me often.
In Soviet Russia you dant have to put up with these crappy jokes
Read the thread from the last slashdot discussion. They were intentionally sending erroneious content based on the User String of the Opera browser.
This is untrue. Opera6 displays the page which is sent to MSIE6 just fine. You can see screenshots on this page.
Håkon Wium Lie
CTO, Opera Software
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
http://www.amoebasoft.com/madcamel/bork.gif
Thanks rdesktop!
Maybe the homepage of Opera's CTO have some info that can enlighten you?
http://people.opera.com/~howcome/2003/2/msn/
Actually, it uses W3C's Document Object Model to alter the text on the page. You can check the script from:
http://www.opera.com/js/bork/encheferizer.js
Thanks rdesktop!
Sveedish chef makes chocolate moose:
. au
:)
http://www.almac.co.uk/chef/chef/picsound/chef1
M
The knuckles, the horrible knuckles!
(I'm a girl, you know)
Just downloaded and installed. Very funny.
The Help->About Opera menu is also borked.
-ted
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
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
Well, you understand it wrong. Yes, the page sent to Opera7 renders fine in Opera6 - but the page sent to MSIE6 renders fine in Opera6 and Opera7. So why the special Opera style sheet? It doesn't require one.
So what was wrong is MSN's version checking code, not some grand campaign against Opera. In fact, the very fact that this alternative stylesheet existed shows that Microsoft had put in extra work and tried to provide Opera users with a usable page. Who here thinks their incentive to do that has been increased by this move?
Yes, they put extra work into something that they didn't need to do, and the result made their website render poorly in Opera7. You hit it right on the head. Kudos to Opera for not taking it lying down.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
No, there is a layout bug in Opera 6 that causes list elements to be rendered too far to the right. A small but still noticable difference.
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!
"
HTML doesn't specify layout, so how can "looking different" (wonder what you're comparing it with) be a bug.
MS is intentionally sending a crippled page to Opera. It's not a typo. When they changed the user string to "Oprah", the correct page was sent (the IE one) and rendered fine. The server is scanning the user agent string for "Opera" and sending it a crippled page purposely.
They've "Borked" the Help About page as well .. kinda funny reading ... :)
Somebody signed the message above with my name. I did not write it. My signature is "howcome", not "howcoome".
Håkon Wium Lie
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.
> They have ignored multiple requests to fix the Technet Knowledge Base
> so that it doesn't purposely screw up with Mozilla, so what else is new?
Wrong, that bug was fixed last year. You haven't visited Technet in quite a while, have you?
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. .
?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.
It's just not true that the msn pages render perfect in every version of opera except the newest ones.
As shown by the above link, if MSN had spent less money and *not* developed specific opera pages, they would have enhanced the Opera compatibility of the code.
Do yourself a favour, download Opera 6 and try this links:n /opera7. html - the one that Opera 7 gets (which, as you claim, was to fix Opera 6 displays terribly in both Opera 6/7)m sie6.h tml - this one is what IE6 gets and it works perfectly in BOTH Opera 6/7
http://people.opera.com/howcome/2003/2/ms
http://people.opera.com/howcome/2003/2/msn/
Now a "poor, buggy" research on your side, eh?