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Arguably, Microsoft is why a browser's user-agent is so useless for determining supported features. https://webaim.org/blog/user-agent-string-history/ https://

Arguably, Microsoft is why a browser's user-agent is so useless for determining supported features. https://webaim.org/blog/user-agent-string-history/ https://webaim.org/blog/user-agent-string-history/ The context is explained prior, but the part I'm pointing to is: > And Microsoft grew impatient, and did not wish to wait for webmasters to learn of IE and begin to send it frames, and so Internet Explorer declared that it was “Mozilla compatible” and began to impersonate Netscape, and called itself Mozilla/1.22 (compatible; MSIE 2.0; Windows 95), and Internet Explorer received frames, and all of Microsoft was happy, but webmasters were confused.

recursive 4y ago
Also arguably, the ubiquity of user agent sniffing is why. You get what you measure. You want your UA to contain "Mozilla". By god, you'll get it one way or another.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
  Yeah, I was a little hesitant to suggest that this was caused by Microsoft given that. I actually agree that this problem is caused by user agent sniffing. I could see someone arguing the other way, though. Ultimately, I think it's still on-topic because, at any point, any of these browser vendors (admittedly, not limited to Microsoft) could have started to work with webmasters for a standard of "feature claims" instead of "user agent claims". So a user agent can say, "I support frames," and a server can serve frames. Instead, Microsoft decided they'd just lie about it.
  - wolpoli 4y ago
    Switching to a system of "user agent claims" have been up to any one of the browsers, when they had a majority of marketshare, to push through. Mosaic/Netscape/IE all had a chance in the Web 1.0 world, unfortunately, none of them did.
    - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
      I agree with that too, and admitted to such in my previous comment. Still, being the first practitioner of this comes with a certain responsibility for its proliferation. It's not a sole responsibility to your point, but it is primary in a way. It's a lot easier for others to decide to copy what someone else did than to decide to be the first to do it. To the same point, Google is arguably the reason it persists today given the popularity of Chrome. Just as Microsoft is arguably the reason it started. (I suppose I could have been more careful in the phrasing of my initial comment since "is so useless" could imply both but I don't think it's particularly egregious.)
      - wolpoli 4y ago
        One thing I have always wondered about the story - were servers in the mid-1990s really sniffing user agents to decide what pages to send through? I remember most sites were static .html files back then.
        recursive 4y ago
        Not sure if it's the server, or the javascript, but it was definitely a thing in the 90s.
JohnFen 4y ago
I think user agent strings were a terrible idea from the get-go, so I'm OK with Microsoft (and everyone else) fudging them this way. I think it'd be even better if everyone used the exact same UA string.
- tatersolid 4y ago
  > I think it'd be even better if everyone used the exact same UA string. Then why send a UA string at all? Save the bytes on the wire.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    I agree -- I don't think the UA string should exist. But it does, so the next best thing is having everyone send the same string.

recursive 4y ago

Also arguably, the ubiquity of user agent sniffing is why. You get what you measure. You want your UA to contain "Mozilla". By god, you'll get it one way or another.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
Yeah, I was a little hesitant to suggest that this was caused by Microsoft given that. I actually agree that this problem is caused by user agent sniffing. I could see someone arguing the other way, though. Ultimately, I think it's still on-topic because, at any point, any of these browser vendors (admittedly, not limited to Microsoft) could have started to work with webmasters for a standard of "feature claims" instead of "user agent claims". So a user agent can say, "I support frames," and a server can serve frames. Instead, Microsoft decided they'd just lie about it.
- wolpoli 4y ago
  Switching to a system of "user agent claims" have been up to any one of the browsers, when they had a majority of marketshare, to push through. Mosaic/Netscape/IE all had a chance in the Web 1.0 world, unfortunately, none of them did.
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
    I agree with that too, and admitted to such in my previous comment. Still, being the first practitioner of this comes with a certain responsibility for its proliferation. It's not a sole responsibility to your point, but it is primary in a way. It's a lot easier for others to decide to copy what someone else did than to decide to be the first to do it. To the same point, Google is arguably the reason it persists today given the popularity of Chrome. Just as Microsoft is arguably the reason it started. (I suppose I could have been more careful in the phrasing of my initial comment since "is so useless" could imply both but I don't think it's particularly egregious.)
    - wolpoli 4y ago
      One thing I have always wondered about the story - were servers in the mid-1990s really sniffing user agents to decide what pages to send through? I remember most sites were static .html files back then.
      - recursive 4y ago
        Not sure if it's the server, or the javascript, but it was definitely a thing in the 90s.

JohnFen 4y ago

I think user agent strings were a terrible idea from the get-go, so I'm OK with Microsoft (and everyone else) fudging them this way. I think it'd be even better if everyone used the exact same UA string.

tatersolid 4y ago
> I think it'd be even better if everyone used the exact same UA string. Then why send a UA string at all? Save the bytes on the wire.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  I agree -- I don't think the UA string should exist. But it does, so the next best thing is having everyone send the same string.