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Arise, you have nothing to lose but your barbed wire fences!

1995-12-03 - Code to detect netscape & send a message (was Re: Barring access to Netscape)

Header Data

From: “Josh M. Osborne” <stripes@va.pubnix.com>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Message Hash: 0d508aa3b57b2061e345dcfc34cf466be2f2f9e98a800ffdfcf7c56ca122118d
Message ID: <NAA07447.199512031802@garotte.va.pubnix.com>
Reply To: <199512010917.DAA28429@snoopy.vetmed.auburn.edu>
UTC Datetime: 1995-12-03 18:02:21 UTC
Raw Date: Sun, 3 Dec 95 10:02:21 PST

Raw message

From: "Josh M. Osborne" <stripes@va.pubnix.com>
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 95 10:02:21 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Code to detect netscape & send a message (was Re: Barring access to Netscape)
In-Reply-To: <199512010917.DAA28429@snoopy.vetmed.auburn.edu>
Message-ID: <NAA07447.199512031802@garotte.va.pubnix.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


In message <199512010917.DAA28429@snoopy.vetmed.auburn.edu>, Frank Stuart write
s:
[...client-pull...]
>After talking to a couple of people, and playing around some, this seems
>to be a better choice.  That way, you can actually send information (including
>a list of where to get other browsers) instead of just garbage to netscape
>users.  Is anyone aware of browsers other than Netscape that do client pulls?

There is at least one.  However if you can have server-side includes, check
out: http://www.va.pubnix.com/staff/stripes/nstest.shtml

There is sample source for a netscape tester, and an example of it.

If you can't do server side includes, try this (code not written):

Add the client pull META tag to all your documents, have the client
pull "/cgi-bin/bad-mozilla-no-mozilla-biscut".  That script should
check the browser type (so it can avoid anoying users of the few
non-Mozilla browsers that do client-pull).  Remember that a browser
type of "Mozilla/1.22 (compatible; MSIE 2.0B; Windows 95)" (or similiar)
is *not* netscape.  If the browser type indicates a browser type you
don't want to anoy you can just re-send the document that the PATH_TRANSLATED
env. variable points to.  If the browser type indicates a netscape product,
then you can take your choice of actions:

 * Prepend 
   "<A HREF="explain_gaK.html>netscape supports GAK, and that's bad</A>"
   to the document (you need to do slightly more then that - since you
   need to emit the normat document up to <BODY>, then your text, then
   the origanal document again, so you might go for the next option)
 * Append
   "<A HREF="explain_gaK.html>netscape supports GAK, and that's bad</A>"
   to the tail of the document (this works fine unless you have a
   </HTML> at the end - which almost nobody has).
 * Only give the "netscape sucks" message.  I don't think this is a good 
   idea since it it easyer to hammer your point across if people keep
   seeing the message then if they can't see your page, and decide to go
   elsewhere.

[...]
>That's not a bad idea either.  Hopefully, Netscape will post a retraction
>(soon!) and none of this will be necessary.

Indeed, I hope so.  Even if the retraction is formed internally by people
going "Jim, this is going to put us at odds with the people who put up
content, and gennerate bad press.  It might be a better idea to try to
stand up agenst GAK then go with it.".  (and for the record, yes I do think
there is a signifigant chance that the whole GAK thing is a mis-interpration).

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