742116 - Google News serves basic mobile light-weight HTML version to Native Fennec

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Web Compatibility :: Site Reports, defect)

Description

[Aaron Train [:aaronmt]]

An HTTP GET Request with the UA in Nightly: Mozilla/5.0 (Android; Mobile; rv:14.0) Gecko/14.0 Firefox/14.0a1 -- is served a basic mobile light-weight HTML version of http://news.google.com

An HTTP GET Request with the UA in Chrome Beta: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 4.0.4; en-us; Galaxy Nexus Build/IMM76D) AppleWebKit/535.7 (KHTML, like Gecko) CrMo/16.0.912.77 Mobile Safari/535.7 -- is served the mobile touch-friendly version of http://news.google.com

Spoofing the UA in Nightly to Chrome Beta's will result in the mobile touch-friendly version (as of April 2012) of the site with some caveats of broken layout.

Initial look at some of the WebKit properties they are using:

* -webkit-appearance
* -webkit-background-size
* -webkit-border-radius
* -webkit-box-align
* -webkit-box-flex
* -webkit-box-orient
* -webkit-box-pack
* -webkit-box-shadow
* -webkit-box-sizing
* -webkit-input-placeholder
* -webkit-scrollbar
* -webkit-scrollbar-button
* -webkit-scrollbar-corner
* -webkit-scrollbar-thumb
* -webkit-scrollbar-track
* -webkit-scrollbar-track-piece
* -webkit-text-size-adjust
* -webkit-transform
* -webkit-transition
* -webkit-user-select

Comment 1

[Jason Smith [:jsmith]]

We should only link to bug 739832 if the site is broken on gecko without the UA changed.

Comment 2

[Jason Smith [:jsmith]]

Nominating for kilimanjaro, as this affects a top google app and site for fennec native.

Comment 3

[Aaron Train [:aaronmt]]

As if June 14th, 2012 - they are now serving a sub-optimal basic HTML version. As I understand it, we're really pushing for their touch-webkit based version.

Comment 4

[Aaron Train [:aaronmt]]

As of 08/07, Google is serving the touch version of their site.

Comment 5

[Jason Smith [:jsmith]]

Doesn't work for me. If a user searches through google.com for news, you will get the touch site. However - if you go to news.google.com directly, you will end up getting the old HTML mobile site rendered.

Comment 6

[Hallvord R. M. Steen [:hallvors]]

The page looks much the same in Firefox and Android stock browser now - I think it's the same version. However, the top menu is missing in Firefox. Reported as bug 920466.