forced to use IE? how about no....

[whackaxe]

if you care to take a look at this (french) site www.virginmega.fr with Firefox, you will get a wrong browser error (if you can't read french, then just trust me ;))

now apart from the fact thats it's frances 1st online music store and they should be open to the maximum ammount of people *mumbles bit more*. i just wanted to go there to check out a CD price and i can't. now could someone tell me how do get past this? i've tried disabling javascript and deleting cookies, nothing doing. is there a way to forge the javascript navigatorID?

[cpradio]

An easy way would be fooling the header arguments. Opera has built-in methods to do this, Firefox to my knowledge does not, but there may be an extension that can do it...

[oracleguy]

E-Mail them and tell them to get rid of the message.

[cpradio]

Okay, I found a great answer to this.

Go Here: http://texturizer.net/firefox/extensions/#useragentswitcher
Right click on the 'Install' link and save the file to your hard drive.

Then open that file in Firefox. I had to do it this way as firefox was giving me issues with installing it right from the URL.

Once its installed, Close Firefox, and Start it back up.
Under 'Tools' you will see a 'User Agent' area. Change the User Agent to 'Internet Explorer 6 (Windows XP)', now visit that site you wanted to see.

I have tested this and it worked perfectly.

[Roy Sinclair]

How about not doing business with a company that's obviously too stupid to exist for long anyway.

[allida77]

I really dont see virgin records going away because their web site doesnt support firefox. I would email them and request why they are not supporting it. Depending on how close the email gets to the actual developers you should get a response. I noticed that they use media player on their site so that may be a reason why its ie only. I looked through all their js files but dont see where they are redirecting or reading the browser (I may have overlooked it though my french==null). Did you look through the cookies and see if there were any obvious values you can change?

[sad69]

cpradio's right, it's the user agent parameter in the headers. So browser detection is happening on the server-side, not the client-side.

Sadiq.

[whackaxe]

well even using this thingy magiggy, i'm still getitin refused, i've tried using differnt strings, removing JS, deleting cookies (using web developer extension) to no avail. www.gemal.dk browser spy is detecting me as netscape mozilla. thats good :/

EDIT: it's now working. i installed the User wtring Widget which looks better and is more flexible. only problem is that it doesn't work :D Virgin are also using Microsofs digital licensin software. i was trying to see if they ahda CD in store, i don't like buying off the net, but it seems to be online music store only. how lame.

[cpradio]

Unfortunately, I can't help you in that department :p

[gsnedders]

For me it complains of not using Windows 98SE or newer :mad:, which I can tell you with my limited French...

[cpradio]

So download FireFox, the widget I posted earlier and it will make you have "Windows XP"

[gsnedders]

No, I can do that in Safari, it will say I have MSIE6.

[whackaxe]

ive seen more and more sites doing this. i'm going t start doing the reverse for anything but IE (and AOL :D)

[gsnedders]

ive seen more and more sites doing this. i'm going t start doing the reverse for anything but IE (and AOL :D)

I'm thinking of putting a javascript message saying: You're an idiot, you're using IE, use FireFox or Safari...

[allida77]

I am not an idiot nor is 90% of the web.

[Basscyst]

I am not an idiot nor is 90% of the web.
Well Said.

[whackaxe]

mis-informed and brainwashed are the words that spring to mind more :)

[brothercake]

I still use Mosaic .. it's never done me wrong.

It's weird though .. websites all used to look fine; then for a few years they all looked terrible. Now many of them look fine again. Interesting ...

[Drakain Zeil]

Opera has this little trick in it, ever since M$ cut users out from specific pages on their website, now they can fake websites into believing you are on another browser, such as IE. You can also hard-code it into Fire Fox, but I have no idea where you would hex in the browsers ID.

[gsnedders]

I am not an idiot nor is 90% of the web.

My only reason to put that was to get my own back on all the IE only sites...

[bradyj]

I am not an idiot nor is 90% of the web.

I don't think you're an idiot... however, I can argue that a good 50% of the population is largely of idiot standing. Have you seen the movies in my country:)?

Seriously, I think that IE's integration is just plainly because most people are not computer saavy, and could really care how the sites look, they just want on -- somehow, these two don't fit together that's it's the browser, not the webpage designer (but there is much of that going on as well).

I wonder if Virgin France has to force IE users so that it can oppress it's microsoft license that you were talking about?

Let them lose users, go to iTunes it's more intuitive, Napster just released in the UK, and Sony is out now world wide. If you have money to spend, there are others who will happily take it. Boycott Virgin France.

Ironically, the Virgin us site is integrated into Amazon.com it seems, they're cool with my browser choice.

[gsnedders]

Napster, doesn't work on a Mac...

[bradyj]

Napster, doesn't work on a Mac...

Doesn't it fly just as a browser online now and not an application like it used to? I thought it was just a download center, but I'm probably wrong, it's been a while since i was getting free music :rolleyes:

[JAVAEOC]

Welcome on VirginMega.fr! The navigator that you utlisez does not allow of surfer on this site. For surfer on this site we recommend to you to use Internet To explore as navigator. For the telecharger free, click here

Well that is the text... I do find it extrimly stupid :(

I am not an idiot nor is 90% of the web.

Well, You might not be an idiot, but I DO BELIVE that 90% of all people serfing the web are idiots(in a certin way). I would say that about 90% or even more of all people serfing the internet do notunderstand what a webpage is made of, so they will most certinly not understand cross browser issues....

B.T.W.: Before I used all mighty google to translate that warning, all I saw is "WE are sorry, We are to stupid to make our site work in anything else but IE... We are sorry"

There is also absolutly NO reason that their site wont work in IE....

Mozilla can do ANYTHING IE can do, and even more....

I hate IE....

[JAVAEOC]

Even after installing the swither, this site can still detect Mozilla :D

http://www.w3schools.com/js/tryit.asp?filename=tryjs_browserdetails

[sad69]

I don't think anyone here should be bashing people that use Microsoft or IE or anything like that. Of course we know that IE is not the best browser and all that... but the main thing is that these so-called 'idiots' don't know much about computers, let alone cross-browser mish-mash and all the other stuff us 'computer guys' know about.

They don't know too much about computers, it's not their fault, it's not their passion, so who cares? They're not idiots, they just don't know any better.

I'm sure we could use a similar analogy about people and their cars or houses or investing or shopping and you'll find you can come up with similar ways to bash people because they're not educated enough in that discipline to know better.

So if you're not willing to sit down and educate these 'idiots', don't bash them cuz that's not helping them and they're not even reading this thread to know that they're idiots anyway!!

Sorry, just had to get that off my chest, because someone has to end this bashing, I think so anyway..


I just re-read that and it sounded like I thought ANYONE that used IE was an idiot!! I didn't mean that, I meant people that use IE because they don't know about other browsers and all... I use IE by choice, just because it's easy to use and most of the sites I go to work in IE, so it's all good.

Anyway, just wanted to clarify that..


Sadiq.

[bradyj]

Ha, like the edit:)

But good point that you clarified, I think our complaints are with computer users who don't know/care of that knowledge (and microsoft has nicely catered to them). We are targeting them in an inappropriate way.

I shall then focus my anger toward Microsoft themselves, therefore, by utilizing my mac system :cool:

[sad69]

Ha, like the edit:)

But good point that you clarified, I think our complaints are with computer users who don't know/care of that knowledge (and microsoft has nicely catered to them). We are targeting them in an inappropriate way.

I shall then focus my anger toward Microsoft themselves, therefore, by utilizing my mac system :cool:

Alright :thumbsup:

[cpradio]

Opera has this little trick in it, ever since M$ cut users out from specific pages on their website, now they can fake websites into believing you are on another browser, such as IE. You can also hard-code it into Fire Fox, but I have no idea where you would hex in the browsers ID.

I already provided the answer to that for both.

[JAVAEOC]

Well, I did not mean to bash any IE useres, and I am not saying that whoever uses IE is stupid (Even though I belive it is a "stupid" thing to do)... What I ment is that those 90% "stupid" people, are stupid in a way that they do NOT know about Mozilla, so they just use the Browser that comes with their OP... which is IE....

[swmr]

people are stupid in a way that they do NOT know about Mozilla

ignorance is bliss. ;)

[Basscyst]

Might I point out that because of some of IE's proprietary features, it allows greater flexibility to coders who may be working in a restricted enviroment. I for example make client side solutions that bypass our IT dept for "quick fixes" to little problems. Most of my code will not work in any browser other than IE due to the use of ActiveX etc. Quite honestly I would be at a loss without IE.

Also keep in mind that the varying browsers and the code that works in them, makes for a tomb of specifications that increase the gap between an experienced coder and a noob, there by providing all ya more knowledgables with a higher demand for your skills.

Just a thought,

Basscyst

[sad69]

Might I point out that because of some of IE proprietary features, it allows greater flexibility to coders who may be working in a restricted enviroment. I for example make client side solutions that bypass our IT dept for "quick fixes" to little problems. Most of my code will not work in any browser other than IE due to the use of ActiveX etc. Quite honestly I would be at a loss without IE.

Also keep in mind that the varying browsers and the code that works in them, makes for a tomb of specifications that increase the gap between an experienced coder and a noob, there by providing all ya more knowledgables with a higher demand for your skills.

Just a thought,

Basscyst

Very true. I work in a similar environment, and without IE, I too would be at a loss!

Just because something has some cons, doesn't mean it doesn't have any pros. In some situations the cons may outweigh the pros, while in others the opposite is true. So don't think your situation is the same as everyone elses..

Sadiq.

[brothercake]

I have my Firefox set to spoof as Google. It's interesting how different some sites are ... not just those that fail to recognise a DOM-capable browser, but those that feed content specifically to Google.

[bradyj]

I have my Firefox set to spoof as Google. It's interesting how different some sites are ... not just those that fail to recognise a DOM-capable browser, but those that feed content specifically to Google.

[offtopic]
Out of curiosity, how do you do this? I think it would be an interesting lesson for us all, otherwise I would've pm'd ya':)

[cpradio]

[offtopic]
Out of curiosity, how do you do this? I think it would be an interesting lesson for us all, otherwise I would've pm'd ya':)

Download the widget I posted on the first page and it will allow you to make FireFox tell websites it is using Google, Opera, MSIE, etc.