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The NYT's OS-Restrictive Video Policies

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the could-be-an-oversight dept.

ro1 writes to mention a story on Linux.com about the NYT's confusing video policies. Essentially, if you're running Linux you can only see videos running on the front page of the site; videos elsewhere on the site require Windows or OSX. Roblimo has a video tour of the NYT site to explain the issue in detail. (Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.)

4 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. Karma Whoring by Aqws · · Score: 4, Informative

    For everyone using firefox, here's a nice little extension to get past this stuff. You can also set it as a googlebot and get all their articles for free.

  2. Just to quash any rumors to the contrary... by andymadigan · · Score: 5, Informative

    I just set my User Agent in Firefox 1.5.0.5/Ubuntu Linux 6.06 to Opera 8.0/Win 2000, after whitelisting the site with flashblock, the video played perfectly in the Videos section, and I wasn't shooed away by any browser detection.

    --
    The right to protest the State is more sacred than the State.
  3. Re:Funny! by Whiney+Mac+Fanboy · · Score: 4, Informative
    Now _that's_ ridiculous!

    Yes. However, I think I should have qualified it. I wrote that due to something in the wget man page:

    Identify as agent-string to the HTTP server. The HTTP protocol allows the clients to identify themselves using a User-Agent header field. This enables distinguishing the WWW software, usually for statistical purposes or for tracing of protocol violations. Wget normally identifies as `Wget/version', version being the current version number of Wget. However, some sites have been known to impose the policy of tailoring the output according to the User-Agent-supplied information. While conceptually this is not such a bad idea, it has been abused by servers denying information to clients other than Mozilla or Microsoft Internet Explorer. This option allows you to change the User-Agent line issued by Wget. Use of this option is discouraged, unless you really know what you are doing. NOTE that Netscape Communications Corp. has claimed that false transmissions of `Mozilla' as the User-Agent are a copyright infringement, which will be prosecuted. DO NOT misrepresent Wget as Mozilla.

    However - that item is not in the current version of wget, so who knows.

    Interesting hoever, that netscape at least at one point in time claimed copyright on "Mozilla" in a UA string.
    --
    There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
  4. Re:Flash Versions by Tornado419 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Adobe is creating a Flash 9 player for linux. You can read the developer's blog here