411570 - KB article: Web site is not compatible with Firefox

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(support.mozilla.org :: Knowledge Base Articles, task)

Description

[Robert Parten]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20070914 Mandriva/2.0.0.11-1.1mdv2008.0 (2008.0) Firefox/2.0.0.11
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20070914 Mandriva/2.0.0.11-1.1mdv2008.0 (2008.0) Firefox/2.0.0.11

When this happens, I tried a google search with various strings, and found nothing, it was only until someone at #mandriva on freenode told me about user agent.

I think it would be a valuable addition to your FAQ on firefox for those that don't know about the feature. Also, the description for user agent switcher is vague and needs a refreshing. If at all I would be happy to re-write the description.

So my basic request is to have a more ready documentation on how to handle this problem within Firefox website instead of someone else.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Visit a web site such as http://www.barclays-skills.com/
2. Try to google a generic question and nothing shows up for user agent switcher
3.
Actual Results:  
Nothing happened, had to visit another source in IRC 

Expected Results:  
Need to have the documentation on the FAQ for firefox

Comment 1

[Steffen Wilberg]

Moving to sumo.

Comment 2

[Chris Ilias [:cilias]]

This article should push tech-evangelism and the web site reporter tool, before suggesting spoofing the UA.

CCing Robert Accettura. Anything specific you want this to say?

Comment 3

[Robert Accettura [:raccettura]]

In all honesty I question if there should be any official recommendation to switch useragents.  Simply because some may have a misguided belief that it's better/easier to leave it as IE 6.  This under counts Firefox users and increases the problem.

Having a SUMO document on switching user agents isn't a bad idea.  Promoting it as a "fix" to incompatible websites however is something that needs a lot of thought and discussion.  

Opera stopped spoofing as IE because of this very reason (or so it's said):
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/31/1820211&tid=95&tid=113&tid=218

Comment 4

[Robert Parten]

I agree that leaving it set as IE6 isn't the "fix" that is needed. However, it seems that a lot of websites are "behind the times" and haven't realized the dominant force that is Firefox. 

For us Linux users it sucks when we have things like online applications to fill out and it requires IE6 or "Netscape Navigator" (Don't laugh I saw it just the other day). 

While it isn't a "fix" for everything, I find myself only having to use User Agent Switcher for 1 in every 100 sites I visit, and they almost always involve application processes or something similar.

Would you agree that stating the use of the Switcher is a band aid for the problem a user is having and that use of the website reporter tool and tech-evangelism, are the more viable long term options to solve the problem?

Comment 5

[Robert Accettura [:raccettura]]

My point is two parts:

1.  Evangelism should be part 1 of the fix.  Users should be urged to report the site first.  Otherwise this will always be a problem.

2.  This is partially a policy / political decision.  To recommend this as a workaround AFAIK is a major shift in policy where there is currently no recommendation or even outright mention of this ability (though all geeks know how to do it).

It's important to access the impact of making such a recommendation.  It counters the evangelism effort, and proclaims that Firefox needs to mimic IE in order to work with the internet.

I think this really should move over to some newsgroups to incubate prior to moving forward in this bug.   mozilla.evangelism at a minimum.  There's possibly one or two more that would make sense.

Comment 6

[Chris Ilias [:cilias]]

It turns out, we've already go this covered.
<http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Web+sites+look+wrong#Web_site_doesn_t_support_Firefox>

Comment 7

[Majken Connor [:Kensie]]

That article doesn't address this issue though. We might want to do something to make it easier to find that section. In this case the website doesn't look wrong, the user isn't being allowed into the site.  Maybe add it to "error loading website" ?

Comment 8

[Chris Ilias [:cilias]]

I don't recall any cases where Firefox was blocked, without some sort of page saying "Your browser isn't not supported...". If the user /knows/ that the web site does not support Firefox, I don't know what the user's impetus is, for searching Firefox Support.