4 ms·

This! As a Linux user I don't really care if someone is neglecting my platform of choice or purposefully sabotaging it, I'll just move on in any case. Not perfo

by annnnd 10y ago

This! As a Linux user I don't really care if someone is neglecting my platform of choice or purposefully sabotaging it, I'll just move on in any case. Not performing testing on Linux is inexcusable in my book in this day and age. It seems like a bad idea to check for capabilities by parsing user agent string anyway - I though we all figured that out about 20 years ago? JavaScript allows web page to check for capabilities on-the-fly, so there really is no excuse for whitelists.

Karlozkiller 10y ago
And if they would have a pure JavaScript solution people who block JavaScript would start complaining instead no? Of course you could have JavaScript as a primary solution and then fall back on the other options. Anyone can make a mistake, the real test is whether they change their ways to be less error prone. (With proper testing of Linux platforms too)
greenzebra 10y ago
I am curious how @annnd detects whether link prefetching is supported by a browser in js on-the-fly (reliably and in a performant way) http://caniuse.com/#feat=link-rel-prefetch http://caniuse.com/#feat=link-rel-prefetch. There are many capabilities you can quickly detect, but for that one I can't think of a performant way. Test your solution with Safari on a Mac, which should return false.
- annnnd 10y ago
  I haven't tried detecting whether link prefetching is supported by a browser yet. Not that I think it should even be detected, because those are hints to the browser. If you need to depend on them there is something else wrong with the way you design your apps. But if you still insist you need it, I don't think detection should be that difficult. When user comes to the page for the first time you put a hidden link somewhere with prefetch turned on. Then you ask server if the page has been accessed. And because you only make this check once (for instance on login page while the user is typing) it is performant enough. Is it easier to whitelist? Sure. But we have seen here how reliable whitelisting is.
deadbunny 10y ago
> I'll just move on in any case. Unfortunately not all of us have that option. I'm currently trying to figure out an issue with TFS which means I can't do anything with a PR once it's been raised if I use a browser in Linux. After seeing this thread I think I'll be switching the user agent and see if that fixes it.
josteink 10y ago
> It seems like a bad idea to check for capabilities by parsing user agent string anyway In theory yes. But for some cases it's just not realistic to do feature-detection, and then you move on to the second best option you have. I'm pretty sure we'll have user-agent related bugs for quite a time to come.
- annnnd 10y ago
  Sure, but that is for some very limited cases. And even then you should generally check for browser and its version, not the OS. Browser makers go to great lengths to make browsers run identically on all supported platforms.
ldev 10y ago
> Not performing testing on Linux is inexcusable in my book in this day and age. No, wasting time for two open minded users instead of working for 99,999% users is inexcusable.
ams6110 10y ago
> Not performing testing on Linux is inexcusable in my book in this day and age. 1. There are probably more IE7 users hitting OneDrive than Linux users of all distros combined. Should the fact that there are some users of a platform obligate MS to support it? 2. If you're running Linux on the desktop, you've made a decision to eschew all the major commercial software/OS vendors (particularly Microsoft and Apple). Why should you then expect Microsoft to bend over backwards to support your idiosyncracy? Why do you care? I run OpenBSD on my desktop. I can't run Microsoft stuff. Even Outlook Web won't load unless I spoof my user agent. I don't care.
- vetinari 10y ago
  It is actually problem for Microsoft/Apple. The percentage between $PLATFORM users generally and $PLATFORM users using your product may or may be not correlated. It may happen, that then first percentage will rise but the second will not - you are making it difficult for them, so why bother - and you will miss it. You might fix the software later, but that's the easy part. The more difficult part is to fix your reputation and users habits. They already have opinion of you and found alternatives that work for them. The Thank you, I go back to Google Apps suite. response is a perfect example of this.
- annnnd 10y ago
  I don't care either, FWIW.I haven't used OneDrive yet and I probably never will. But the reason I will not use it is exactly this - I know I will always be unwanted customer in their eyes. And I don't trust them not to throw me under the bus if they feel like it. I should probably say "...is inexcusable to me in this...". Thought it was obvious.

by annnnd 10y ago

Karlozkiller 10y ago

And if they would have a pure JavaScript solution people who block JavaScript would start complaining instead no? Of course you could have JavaScript as a primary solution and then fall back on the other options. Anyone can make a mistake, the real test is whether they change their ways to be less error prone. (With proper testing of Linux platforms too)

greenzebra 10y ago

I am curious how @annnd detects whether link prefetching is supported by a browser in js on-the-fly (reliably and in a performant way) http://caniuse.com/#feat=link-rel-prefetch http://caniuse.com/#feat=link-rel-prefetch. There are many capabilities you can quickly detect, but for that one I can't think of a performant way. Test your solution with Safari on a Mac, which should return false.

annnnd 10y ago
I haven't tried detecting whether link prefetching is supported by a browser yet. Not that I think it should even be detected, because those are hints to the browser. If you need to depend on them there is something else wrong with the way you design your apps. But if you still insist you need it, I don't think detection should be that difficult. When user comes to the page for the first time you put a hidden link somewhere with prefetch turned on. Then you ask server if the page has been accessed. And because you only make this check once (for instance on login page while the user is typing) it is performant enough. Is it easier to whitelist? Sure. But we have seen here how reliable whitelisting is.

deadbunny 10y ago

> I'll just move on in any case. Unfortunately not all of us have that option. I'm currently trying to figure out an issue with TFS which means I can't do anything with a PR once it's been raised if I use a browser in Linux. After seeing this thread I think I'll be switching the user agent and see if that fixes it.

josteink 10y ago

> It seems like a bad idea to check for capabilities by parsing user agent string anyway In theory yes. But for some cases it's just not realistic to do feature-detection, and then you move on to the second best option you have. I'm pretty sure we'll have user-agent related bugs for quite a time to come.

annnnd 10y ago
Sure, but that is for some very limited cases. And even then you should generally check for browser and its version, not the OS. Browser makers go to great lengths to make browsers run identically on all supported platforms.

ldev 10y ago

> Not performing testing on Linux is inexcusable in my book in this day and age. No, wasting time for two open minded users instead of working for 99,999% users is inexcusable.

ams6110 10y ago

> Not performing testing on Linux is inexcusable in my book in this day and age. 1. There are probably more IE7 users hitting OneDrive than Linux users of all distros combined. Should the fact that there are some users of a platform obligate MS to support it? 2. If you're running Linux on the desktop, you've made a decision to eschew all the major commercial software/OS vendors (particularly Microsoft and Apple). Why should you then expect Microsoft to bend over backwards to support your idiosyncracy? Why do you care? I run OpenBSD on my desktop. I can't run Microsoft stuff. Even Outlook Web won't load unless I spoof my user agent. I don't care.

vetinari 10y ago
It is actually problem for Microsoft/Apple. The percentage between $PLATFORM users generally and $PLATFORM users using your product may or may be not correlated. It may happen, that then first percentage will rise but the second will not - you are making it difficult for them, so why bother - and you will miss it. You might fix the software later, but that's the easy part. The more difficult part is to fix your reputation and users habits. They already have opinion of you and found alternatives that work for them. The Thank you, I go back to Google Apps suite. response is a perfect example of this.
annnnd 10y ago
I don't care either, FWIW.I haven't used OneDrive yet and I probably never will. But the reason I will not use it is exactly this - I know I will always be unwanted customer in their eyes. And I don't trust them not to throw me under the bus if they feel like it. I should probably say "...is inexcusable to me in this...". Thought it was obvious.