Batten down the hatches - we've got a new User Agent String

It always happens - a new version of Internet Explorer is released and some web sites break because they are *not* using best practice when detecting browser versions.

Internet Explorer 8 will introduce a new UAS, Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0), and I know that web sites are going to break.  The most common problem encountered (in my experience) is the web site will erroneously report that you are using an old (unsupported) version of IE and prompt you to upgrade.

Please, consider using conditional comments if you must detect Internet Explorer version.  Far too often web sites break, not because they will not display properly in IE7 or later and the web designer has made a conscious decision to address the problem by barring access to the latest browser version, but simply because the site does not recognise the latest UAS and serves content that is completely inappropriate.  Ironically, every time I have encountered such a site, it displays just fine if I spoof the UAS.

Published Sat, Feb 23 2008 22:09 by sandi
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Comments

# re: Batten down the hatches - we've got a new User Agent String

Saturday, February 23, 2008 1:35 PM by Barry

That's what I don't get.  User Agent spoofers wouldn't be such a must-have item for experienced web surfers if they didn't *work*, meaning that most of the sites that "break" when using a particular browser only do so due to an imposed constraint that has nothing to do with the actual page.

It's like all the games that are coming out these days that require XP instead of 2K.  I have yet to see one where the requirement is valid, i.e., they always have to do with some function not being present in a DLL, except the function is never actually called - hence an imposed constraint (in this case, probably more MS's fault rather than the blissfully unaware game developer).