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To a certain extent I feel your pain and get where you're coming from. The problem is -- A) The user agent isn't always specific enough. I've run into renderin

To a certain extent I feel your pain and get where you're coming from. The problem is -- A) The user agent isn't always specific enough. I've run into rendering bugs that were specific not just to individual browser versions, but individual browser versions on specific platforms. I've seen bugs fixed and introduced that didn't trigger user agent updates. B) Browsers lie about their user agents. Firefox fingerprint protection normalizes the browser version reported in the user-agent to reduce the amount of information leaked. So yes, agent checks can be useful. I've used user agent checks to reduce CPU-heavy animations on older versions of IE, or target rendering bugs that literally can't be detected any other way. I get it. But when I apply those checks, I'm doing it in the spirit of progressive enhancement -- and recognizing that those checks are error prone and might fail in the future. I never gate an entire application behind a whitelist or blacklist. Bear in mind, all of the stuff you're talking about falls under the category of "I've found a bug in a weird situation and I just want to try and figure out if I'm in that situation." Not, "I've found the X situations where my site works, and it will only work in those situations." Very different approaches to web development.

Klathmon 7y ago
Yeah I don't support gating entire sites behind checks like this outside of some situations (like it's a tech demo using a new browser API, or a public beta where they want to limit it to a few browsers until it's stable enough to open up to the world). But I also absolutely get the allure of whitelisting "known good browsers". I've literally never seen a user hit a bug, and then blame their browser. Hell, I've personally hit bugs and blamed the website only to find out later that it was a browser bug. It's a shitty situation all around, and I don't have a good universal answer. I try to avoid doing that at all costs, but I also have to admit that a piece of software I currently work on is gated to only Chrome and Safari due to the extreme number of bugs that were coming from alternate browsers and the fact that we simply don't have the time to chase them down right now. It sucks, I feel bad about doing it, and I don't want anyone else to do it for many reasons (including the health of the web in general), but until I personally can find a good way out, I also can't in good conscience be mad at others for doing the same thing.
- mcny 7y ago
  > Chrome and Safari Not that I know anything but that's a weird set of browsers to support. Apple can't update Safari without an OS update from what I know and even then it is just on macOS and iOS. Worksheet it be cheaper and easier to force users to get Chrome?
simion314 7y ago
The problem I see often is when sites would use whitelists,l so when you use a less popular browser you get the use Chrome page. At least put a banner that my browser is not supported but let me try the page.

Klathmon 7y ago

Yeah I don't support gating entire sites behind checks like this outside of some situations (like it's a tech demo using a new browser API, or a public beta where they want to limit it to a few browsers until it's stable enough to open up to the world). But I also absolutely get the allure of whitelisting "known good browsers". I've literally never seen a user hit a bug, and then blame their browser. Hell, I've personally hit bugs and blamed the website only to find out later that it was a browser bug. It's a shitty situation all around, and I don't have a good universal answer. I try to avoid doing that at all costs, but I also have to admit that a piece of software I currently work on is gated to only Chrome and Safari due to the extreme number of bugs that were coming from alternate browsers and the fact that we simply don't have the time to chase them down right now. It sucks, I feel bad about doing it, and I don't want anyone else to do it for many reasons (including the health of the web in general), but until I personally can find a good way out, I also can't in good conscience be mad at others for doing the same thing.

mcny 7y ago
> Chrome and Safari Not that I know anything but that's a weird set of browsers to support. Apple can't update Safari without an OS update from what I know and even then it is just on macOS and iOS. Worksheet it be cheaper and easier to force users to get Chrome?

simion314 7y ago

The problem I see often is when sites would use whitelists,l so when you use a less popular browser you get the use Chrome page. At least put a banner that my browser is not supported but let me try the page.