419129 - valueactive.com (poker game) - rejects all non-Windows browsers and non-Firefox Gecko browsers on Windows

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Tech Evangelism Graveyard :: English US, defect)

Description

[Kristoffer Grundström]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.12) Gecko/20080208 Mandriva/2.0.0.12-1.1mdv2008.0 (2008.0) Firefox/2.0.0.12
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.12) Gecko/20080208 Mandriva/2.0.0.12-1.1mdv2008.0 (2008.0) Firefox/2.0.0.12

I was logging in on a random pokersite and I wanted to play poker via their webbased client. When trying to use the webbased client I got the message as seen in the URL. A friend of mine told me that there is a way to trick the server to think that the browser comes from Windows.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Surfing to www.nordicbet.com.
2. Logging in to my account, so far so good.
3. Opening the webbased client and seeing the message about me having the wrong browser even thou I AM using Mozilla Firefox as suggested.
Actual Results:  
I couldn't get anywhere.

Expected Results:  
Well, I should've been able to play POKER via the client.

Comment 1

[Jesse Ruderman]

You might be able to get in by spoofing your user-agent to look like the Windows Firefox user-agent.  You can do this through about:config or using an extension.  But it would be better if you contacted the site and asked them to fix their UA sniffing (or stop UA sniffing).

Comment 2

[Kristoffer Grundström]

(In reply to comment #1)
> You might be able to get in by spoofing your user-agent to look like the
> Windows Firefox user-agent.  You can do this through about:config or using an
> extension.  But it would be better if you contacted the site and asked them to
> fix their UA sniffing (or stop UA sniffing).

I already done the last part.

Comment 3

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

I'm gonna take a wild guess this affects more than just "Firefox" UAs.

Comment 4

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

This doesn't even seem to work on Mac Firefox 2, much less Camino.

https://mppv2flash3.valueactive.com/nordicbet/lobby.aspx links to a JavaScript that includes the following function:

function checkBrowser() {	
	var user_agent = navigator.userAgent;
	var os;		
	// get os
	if (user_agent.indexOf("Windows") != -1) {
		os = "win";
	}
	else if (user_agent.indexOf("Macintosh") != -1 || user_agent.indexOf("Mac_PowerPC") != -1) {
		os = "mac";
	}	
	// get browser
	if (user_agent.indexOf("MSIE") != -1) {
		browser = "ie";
	}
	else if (user_agent.indexOf("Firefox") != -1) {
		browser = "firefox";
	}
	else if (user_agent.indexOf("Safari") != -1) {
		browser = "safari";
	}
	
	if ( ActiveXObject) browser = "ie";
	
	// act accordingly..
	if (os=="win" && browser=="ie") {
		ok=true;
		ax=true;
	}
	else if (os=="win" && browser=="firefox") {
		ok=true;
	}
	else if (os=="mac" && browser=="safari") {
		ok=false;
	}
	else if (os=="mac" && browser=="firefox") {
		ok=false;
	}
	
	if (ok) {
		loadControl();
	}
	else {
		showBadBrowser();
	}
}

They're rejecting all non-Windows browsers and all Windows browsers not named "Firefox" or "IE".

Good luck convincing them this is a problem, though :-\

Comment 5

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

INCOMPLETE due to lack of activity since the end of 2009.

If someone is willing to investigate the issues raised in this bug to determine whether they still exist, *and* work with the site in question to fix any existing issues, please feel free to re-open and assign to yourself.

Sorry for the bugspam; filter on "NO MORE PRE-2010 TE BUGS" to remove.