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!"
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.'
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!
Check it out here:
http://poriss.com/bork.gif
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
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
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
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.
Read the thread from the last slashdot discussion. They were intentionally sending erroneious content based on the User String of the Opera browser.
I don't know, I guess this strikes me as petty somehow.
It would have been petty if they had put this into their main release, so that everybody using Opera had to put up with it. You know, sort of like how MS put it into the main release of their web page, so that every Opera user has to put up with it.
The Opera folks very clearly set aside the "joke" browser, and they've stated very clearly why they are doing it. People who don't want to mess with it won't accidentally stumble acrsos it. They're pointing out, in a manner that makes it very obvious, just what it is that MS is doing. And if the article is right, and MS is still screwing up older versions of Opera, then contacting the MS team clearly hasn't done much good.
-Rob
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
Oh, but it is! As the msn.com site does not pass validation, it can be treated any way the browser chooses.
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org
The problem was both Opera v6 and v7 rendered the page that was sent to Internet Explorer browsers perfectly. Opera v7 renders the page that was sent to v6 just fine. 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.
Opera wasn't broken yet MS decided it needed to be fixed (as is fixing a cat).
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
I talked to Mr. Håkon Wium Lie myself, and he said that they repeatedly hav complained to MS about this and other problems over a long time, but nothing happened. The Opera problem was very, very obvious and could be seen very easily. Yet, they did not fix it. The error MSN on Opera error was the most reported Opera error of them all and I imagine that MSN got their fair share of complaints from the MSN on Opera users as well.. Mr. Lie said to me that "there's a fair shar of incompetence at Microsoft, but this problem is not caused by that." Seems like he has borked his own site as well... :)
Thanks rdesktop!
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."
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!
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
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
"So what was wrong is MSN's version checking code,"
Web-sites have no business sending different content to different browsers in the first place. There is never any need to change anything you send; just settle for whatever subset of valid content still looks good in the majority of browsers.
Particularly in the case of CSS, it's up to the browser to choose whether to render it or not, and if so, there's lots of scope for how it's done.
If website authors learned this small fact, assigning the bug to the correct party would not be a problem.
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
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"
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.
Opera is so good, people are happy to pay money for it, or are prepared to have a constant banner ad on the screen. That makes Opera a serious commercial rival. Couple that with the fact Opera is their major rival in the mobile phone market, a market MS desperately wants control of, and you start to understand why it is suspicious that the Opera stylesheet for MSN mysteriously changed a few days after Opera 7 rolled out.
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. --Albert Einstein
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.
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.
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.