651504 - Remove the frozen date and preceding slash from the User Agent String

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core :: Networking: HTTP, defect)

Description

[Daniel C]

+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #649435 +++

This is an alternative to bug 649435 as the proposal there goes against the
spec and produces an invalid UA string. See bug 649435 comment 26 for the
relevant sections of the spec and possible consequences.

This approach is the same as bug 649435 but also removes the preceding slash to remain valid as per the spec. See bug 649435 for the relevant sections of the spec and potential breakage.

Note: this does *not* remove the buildid from navigator.buildId.  If someone wants that changed, you should file a new bug as this is *not* the place to discuss that.

Comment 1

[Daniel C]

This bug should probably be WONTFIX-ed due to the large number of pages checking for the presence of "Gecko/" in the user-agent string as a way of detecting Gecko (as opposed to checking for just "Gecko" which is in WebKit user-agent strings).

Comment 2

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

See also bug 660498.

Comment 3

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to comment #1)
> This bug should probably be WONTFIX-ed due to the large number of pages
> checking for the presence of "Gecko/" in the user-agent string as a way of
> detecting Gecko (as opposed to checking for just "Gecko" which is in WebKit
> user-agent strings).

Agreed, I don't think we can do this.