browser detection 101: back to the basics?
December 16th, 2006 by Dylan
Today I saw an “official announcement from Yahoo!”, where it was recommended that I “update” my browser to Internet Explorer 7.
I could understand this recommendation if I used IE 6 or 5. But I was browsing in Firefox, and i don’t have an interest in a downgrade of my current browsing experience.
But that was more forgivable than the fact that I’m using a Mac (and no, I was not running from Parallels)!
It’s a bit surprising to see Yahoo! spending valuable screen real estate on such an untargeted message, instead of employing simple browser detection that has worked in every major browser since the mid-1990s.
So out of curiosity, I decided to click on the official Yahoo! announcement:
What am I missing here? I can’t see how this would be a positive or intended result for Yahoo! or Microsoft.
Talk about a counterproductive strange twist of fate.
Not too smart in the long nor the short run.
Wow that is something. And you wonder why Browser detection is discouraged?
As far as I can tell it’s almost on par with discrimination. Other than hacks for displayability, browser detection attempts to segregate a website’s readers. Why should members of a certain browser get preferential treatment, while other browsers shunted?
–Jon Z | http://www.jzencovich.com
and to make things worse, they say that IE7 is free. does that mean I can freely install IE7 on linux using wine?
Well my guess is that Microsoft paid Yahoo to include that on their page, and as not to filter out any of the future recipients of their ad, they did not use a browser detection script.
I second COLIN on that. And I think discriminatory treatment like this is one one of the reasons why yahoo market share has continuously decreased.
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