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I agree, making laws about it shouldn't be necessary. The context of this discussion is that applications should not flatly refuse to service UA clients who ar

I agree, making laws about it shouldn't be necessary. The context of this discussion is that applications should not flatly refuse to service UA clients who are not the biggest 3 or 4 players. A better solution would be to require servers to service all clients, but if an unknown or unexpected client is detected, the server's response should include a compatibility warning. Server-side software makers are simply trying to limit the amount of testing they need to do to provide a reliable system. Client-side software makers, by lying about who they are, are trying to do the exact same thing. The problem is that these two actions result in an outcome that achieves neither server nor client's goals, and there's the rub. You are arguing that it should be ok for your software to lie about who/what it is. If we go down that road, we end up with chaos. Software misreporting who/what it is so a server that will think it is a compatible system and agree respond, when it might otherwise refuse. fraud n. A deception practiced in order to induce another to give up possession of property or surrender a right. n. A piece of trickery; a trick. Personally, despite the obviously good intention to provide a reliably working software system, I think building a software system that systematically lies when reporting who/what it is is worse than a one-off lie to a customer support person on a phone call. Surely there is a solution that does not involve deception.

nkrisc 7y ago
I approach this as an end user. I'm using a tool, my browser in this case, to make a request for resources from a server. I can choose to make any request I like, formed in any way I choose. The server can choose to respond in any way it likes, compatibility warnings and all. However if a server refuses to serve me a response if I use one client over another, but is still willing to serve me the user, I do believe it is well within my right to disguise myself as another client. I'm not accessing anything I don't have a right to; after all, the server would happily respond if I use a different client. > You are arguing that it should be ok for your software to lie about who/what it is. I suppose, yes, I am. Not "who" though, we're not talking about authentication. Only what software, I the end user, am using to make the request. I'll concede it's "fraud" if you define it as "trick." Guilty as charged: trickery.
- chrismmay 7y ago
  You have me there on the "who" bit. I admit I have also been guilty on occasion of doing whatever is necessary as a client to get a server to respond. My point is that if we are going to try to fix it, we should address the problem, not mask it or throw up our hands and just set the UA to some silly constant. The information is helpful in troubleshooting issues and avoids people having to ask the inevitable "what browser/device are you using?" and also helps to allocate resources when testing. I honestly don't know what we would do as software developers and testers without somewhat accurate UA information. Maybe where we are right now is the best we can do. You can pretend to be Chrome and most of the major devices/clients will report their UA accurately, but if everyone did what you are claiming is your right to do, we would not have a viable ecosystem.

nkrisc 7y ago

I approach this as an end user. I'm using a tool, my browser in this case, to make a request for resources from a server. I can choose to make any request I like, formed in any way I choose. The server can choose to respond in any way it likes, compatibility warnings and all. However if a server refuses to serve me a response if I use one client over another, but is still willing to serve me the user, I do believe it is well within my right to disguise myself as another client. I'm not accessing anything I don't have a right to; after all, the server would happily respond if I use a different client. > You are arguing that it should be ok for your software to lie about who/what it is. I suppose, yes, I am. Not "who" though, we're not talking about authentication. Only what software, I the end user, am using to make the request. I'll concede it's "fraud" if you define it as "trick." Guilty as charged: trickery.

chrismmay 7y ago
You have me there on the "who" bit. I admit I have also been guilty on occasion of doing whatever is necessary as a client to get a server to respond. My point is that if we are going to try to fix it, we should address the problem, not mask it or throw up our hands and just set the UA to some silly constant. The information is helpful in troubleshooting issues and avoids people having to ask the inevitable "what browser/device are you using?" and also helps to allocate resources when testing. I honestly don't know what we would do as software developers and testers without somewhat accurate UA information. Maybe where we are right now is the best we can do. You can pretend to be Chrome and most of the major devices/clients will report their UA accurately, but if everyone did what you are claiming is your right to do, we would not have a viable ecosystem.