6 ms·

> If a user agent change makes the software slower for a platform then that's not exactly an accident so somebody must have had the intention to make it run bug

> If a user agent change makes the software slower for a platform then that's not exactly an accident so somebody must have had the intention to make it run buggy That's not necessarily true. For example they might be doing polyfills that are slower than the native windows implementation. I feel like I'm seeing a lot of this kind of thinking everywhere. The canonical example for me is lately is "he voted for Trump/Hillary therefore he must support groping/war/whatever". I wish people would ease up on these kinds of deduction-based motivation attribution. It's my view that there enough self-professed unethical motivations for us to work against, without speculating. The speculation just muddies the waters.

Lievelingsduif 10y ago
I'm guessing you don't really understand what he's saying. He's saying that by pretending to be Windows instead of Linux the webapplication runs better. There's nothing native about it. The same exact website/piece of software runs better by saying "Hi I'm on windows". This obviously means foul play.
- JshWright 10y ago
  > This obviously means foul play. No, it really doesn't. It could just as likely mean they load a bunch of slow polyfills and workarounds when the browser is not part of a whitelist (assuming it won't have support for various APIs that it actually does support).
  - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
    I struggle to consider that Microsoft is really that inept as to only be able to design it that well. I mean, do they do any testing at all? Across the browsers and platforms accessing their sites? Seriously, white-listing?? I don't buy it.
    - emodendroket 10y ago
      It seems most likely that they do testing on exactly the browsers and operating systems they say they support and no other platforms and do not want to expand the list because they'd have to provision more environments and do more testing.
      - jacquesm 10y ago
        I'd buy that if it sent out the exact same code that it would without that UA. But it doesn't.
        JshWright 10y ago
        What don't you buy? They test with a certain set of supported platforms. If a client isn't one of those (whitelisted) platforms, then they may send out a bunch of inefficient polyfills so they know XYZ functionality exists, even if it's slow.
        jacquesm 10y ago
        Except that it works just fine if those 'unsupported' platforms are treated in the exact same way as the supported ones. To make it seem as if a whole pile of work was done in order to make unsupported platforms work less well but this is a good thing is something that I find very hard to reconcile. And if this were a company that did not have a history of exactly such tricks it might be more believable, MS - with me at least - does definitely not have the benefit of the doubt in cases like these.
        emodendroket 10y ago
        How thoroughly do you figure that guy posting the question tested it compared to whatever QA process MS does for supported platforms?
        jacquesm 10y ago
- neuronsguy 10y ago
  No. I think he understands exactly what the article means, and is correctly stating that it is not necessarily foul play at all.
- bubblethink 10y ago
  No it doesn't. It is just shoddy detection. It may rely on some windows native APIs that may or may not exist on all linux variants. The fact that it worked by changing the user agents in some case doesn't mean it would be wise for them to deploy it for everyone. The proper fix would obviously be to actual detection and not rely on the user agent string.
- Mithaldu 10y ago
  You're guessing. Please look at what people say who investigated this: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/60nj67/office_365_onedrive_looks_at_useragent_to/df7wnk1/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/60nj67/office_365_on...
fnord123 10y ago
Microsoft has a history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code
- skissane 10y ago
  You are talking about something Microsoft did in the early 1990s. It is very likely that most or even all of the people involved don't work for Microsoft any more. No company is ever going to be perfect, but I honestly believe that today's Microsoft is a much better corporate citizen than 1990s Microsoft was. (And, with the AARD code, while they shipped it turned on in the beta, it was disabled in the final release – which suggests to me that someone in charge at Microsoft had second thoughts about this even back then.) If 1990s Microsoft did something seemingly anti-competitive, it probably was intentionally anti-competitive. If 2010s Microsoft does something seemingly anti-competitive, while it still might be by intention, I'm more inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt and presume it is the unintentional side effect of an innocent (even if misguided) decision.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    > If 1990s Microsoft did something seemingly anti-competitive, it probably was intentionally anti-competitive. Ok > If 2010s Microsoft does something seemingly anti-competitive, while it still might be by intention, I'm more inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt and presume it is the unintentional side effect of an innocent (even if misguided) decision. That's fine with me. But the degree to which MS has abused its monopoly position in the past, the degree to which they have been found guilty of bribery (in very recent times) in order to push MS products where Linux would have been a viable (and more sensible) alternative (for instance: http://www.intellinews.com/former-romanian-minister-admits-taking-4mn-bribe-in-microsoft-case-500447431/?archive=bne http://www.intellinews.com/former-romanian-minister-admits-t... , there are plenty of other examples), the Windows 10 privacy violations, the crippling of Skype on Linux and so on make me believe that there are still at least some parts of MS that have not changed all that much.
    - vedranm 10y ago

Lievelingsduif 10y ago

I'm guessing you don't really understand what he's saying. He's saying that by pretending to be Windows instead of Linux the webapplication runs better. There's nothing native about it. The same exact website/piece of software runs better by saying "Hi I'm on windows". This obviously means foul play.

JshWright 10y ago
> This obviously means foul play. No, it really doesn't. It could just as likely mean they load a bunch of slow polyfills and workarounds when the browser is not part of a whitelist (assuming it won't have support for various APIs that it actually does support).
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  I struggle to consider that Microsoft is really that inept as to only be able to design it that well. I mean, do they do any testing at all? Across the browsers and platforms accessing their sites? Seriously, white-listing?? I don't buy it.
  - emodendroket 10y ago
    It seems most likely that they do testing on exactly the browsers and operating systems they say they support and no other platforms and do not want to expand the list because they'd have to provision more environments and do more testing.
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      I'd buy that if it sent out the exact same code that it would without that UA. But it doesn't.
      - JshWright 10y ago
        What don't you buy? They test with a certain set of supported platforms. If a client isn't one of those (whitelisted) platforms, then they may send out a bunch of inefficient polyfills so they know XYZ functionality exists, even if it's slow.
        jacquesm 10y ago
        Except that it works just fine if those 'unsupported' platforms are treated in the exact same way as the supported ones. To make it seem as if a whole pile of work was done in order to make unsupported platforms work less well but this is a good thing is something that I find very hard to reconcile. And if this were a company that did not have a history of exactly such tricks it might be more believable, MS - with me at least - does definitely not have the benefit of the doubt in cases like these.
        emodendroket 10y ago
        How thoroughly do you figure that guy posting the question tested it compared to whatever QA process MS does for supported platforms?
        jacquesm 10y ago
neuronsguy 10y ago
No. I think he understands exactly what the article means, and is correctly stating that it is not necessarily foul play at all.
bubblethink 10y ago
No it doesn't. It is just shoddy detection. It may rely on some windows native APIs that may or may not exist on all linux variants. The fact that it worked by changing the user agents in some case doesn't mean it would be wise for them to deploy it for everyone. The proper fix would obviously be to actual detection and not rely on the user agent string.
Mithaldu 10y ago
You're guessing. Please look at what people say who investigated this: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/60nj67/office_365_onedrive_looks_at_useragent_to/df7wnk1/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/60nj67/office_365_on...

fnord123 10y ago

Microsoft has a history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code

skissane 10y ago
You are talking about something Microsoft did in the early 1990s. It is very likely that most or even all of the people involved don't work for Microsoft any more. No company is ever going to be perfect, but I honestly believe that today's Microsoft is a much better corporate citizen than 1990s Microsoft was. (And, with the AARD code, while they shipped it turned on in the beta, it was disabled in the final release – which suggests to me that someone in charge at Microsoft had second thoughts about this even back then.) If 1990s Microsoft did something seemingly anti-competitive, it probably was intentionally anti-competitive. If 2010s Microsoft does something seemingly anti-competitive, while it still might be by intention, I'm more inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt and presume it is the unintentional side effect of an innocent (even if misguided) decision.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  > If 1990s Microsoft did something seemingly anti-competitive, it probably was intentionally anti-competitive. Ok > If 2010s Microsoft does something seemingly anti-competitive, while it still might be by intention, I'm more inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt and presume it is the unintentional side effect of an innocent (even if misguided) decision. That's fine with me. But the degree to which MS has abused its monopoly position in the past, the degree to which they have been found guilty of bribery (in very recent times) in order to push MS products where Linux would have been a viable (and more sensible) alternative (for instance: http://www.intellinews.com/former-romanian-minister-admits-taking-4mn-bribe-in-microsoft-case-500447431/?archive=bne http://www.intellinews.com/former-romanian-minister-admits-t... , there are plenty of other examples), the Windows 10 privacy violations, the crippling of Skype on Linux and so on make me believe that there are still at least some parts of MS that have not changed all that much.
  - vedranm 10y ago