784450 - cnet.com serves simplified mobile site to Firefox Android

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Web Compatibility :: Site Reports, defect)

Description

[Lawrence Mandel [:lmandel] (use needinfo)]

Attachment: cnet.com rendered in Fennec

CNet serves simplified mobile content to Fennec resulting in an inferior experience when compared with the stock browser.

Comment 1

[Lawrence Mandel [:lmandel] (use needinfo)]

Attachment: cnet.com rendered in Android Stock browser

Comment 2

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

Still an issue. https://twitter.com/hallvord/status/361823678234763266

Comment 3

[Karl Dubost💡 :karlcow]

* Firefox OS       Desktop
* Firefox Android  lowfi Mobile
* iOS              hifi Mobile


# Firefox OS 

GET / HTTP/1.1
Accept: */*
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, compress
Host: www.cnet.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Mobile; rv:18.0) Gecko/18.0 Firefox/18.0

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Cache-Control: max-age=120
Connection: keep-alive
Content-Encoding: gzip
Content-Language: en-US
Content-Length: 19686
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 18:01:27 GMT
Expires: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 18:02:39 GMT
P3P: CP="CAO DSP COR CURa ADMa DEVa PSAa PSDa IVAi IVDi CONi OUR OTRi IND PHY ONL UNI FIN COM NAV INT DEM STA"
RUM_MAD_SESSION: c
Set-Cookie: mad4=c; Domain=.cnet.com; Path=/;
Set-Cookie: tempSessionId=Cg5gqFKPm/dCz9BmOGg; domain=.cnet.com; path=/; expires=Mon, 20-Nov-2023 18:01:27 GMT
Set-Cookie: arrowLat=1385143287804; domain=.cnet.com; path=/; expires=Sat, 22-Nov-2014 18:01:27 GMT
Set-Cookie: arrowSpc=1; domain=.cnet.com; path=/; expires=Sun, 22-Dec-2013 18:01:27 GMT
Set-Cookie: bkGeo=can; domain=.cnet.com; path=/
Set-Cookie: arrowFdCounter=1; domain=.cnet.com; path=/; expires=Fri, 22-Nov-2013 19:01:27 GMT
Set-Cookie: wsFd=true; domain=.cnet.com; path=/; expires=Sun, 22-Dec-2013 18:01:27 GMT
Vary: X-Purpose
Vary: Accept-Encoding


# Firefox Android

GET / HTTP/1.1
Accept: */*
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, compress
Host: www.cnet.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Android; Mobile; rv:18.0) Gecko/18.0 Firefox/18.0

HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Cache-Control: max-age=0, no-cache, no-store
Connection: keep-alive
Connection: Transfer-Encoding
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 18:02:36 GMT
Expires: Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT
Location: http://m.cnet.com
Server: Apache
Transfer-Encoding:  chunked
Vary: Accept-Encoding


GET / HTTP/1.1
Accept: */*
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, compress
Host: m.cnet.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Android; Mobile; rv:18.0) Gecko/18.0 Firefox/18.0

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Connection: keep-alive
Content-Encoding: gzip
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 18:03:31 GMT
Server: nginx/1.2.0
Set-Cookie: grd=m1%2C%2C%2C; path=/; expires=Fri, 29 Nov 2013 18:03:31 GMT
X-Powered-By: Express
transfer-encoding: chunked



# iOS


GET / HTTP/1.1
Accept: */*
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, compress
Host: www.cnet.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3

HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Cache-Control: max-age=0, no-cache, no-store
Connection: keep-alive
Connection: Transfer-Encoding
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 18:03:11 GMT
Expires: Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT
Location: http://m.cnet.com
Server: Apache
Transfer-Encoding:  chunked
Vary: Accept-Encoding



GET / HTTP/1.1
Accept: */*
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, compress
Host: m.cnet.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Cache-Control: no-cache, private, no-store, must-revalidate, max-stale=0, post-check=0, pre-check=0
Connection: keep-alive
Content-Encoding: gzip
Content-Length: 1043
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 18:03:59 GMT
Server: nginx/1.2.0
X-Powered-By: Express



The http://m.cnet.com is in fact 
* the JS calling the page with xhr when accessed with iOS User Agent or Android Stock Browser (see the markup below)
  For example, 
    d: "iphone"
    d: "android"
* the lowfi content with iOS.


So basically there are multiple level of detection. :)


The markup
=========================
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=1">
<meta HTTP-EQUIV="CACHE-CONTROL" CONTENT="NO-CACHE">
<meta HTTP-EQUIV="PRAGMA" CONTENT="NO-CACHE">
<title>CNET</title>

<script>var noCookie = false;
function noCookies() {
 //alert("no cookie");
 if (noCookie) {document.getElementById("nck").style.display = "block";}
}
</script>

</head>

<body onload="noCookies()" style="background: #fff;padding: 1em;">


<noscript>
  <p style="color: #900">Oh no! It looks like you don't have JavaScript enabled in your browser.</p>
  <p>You may have a better experience if you enable JavaScript.</p>
  <a href="/?ds=njs">Click here to continue</a>
</noscript>

<div id="nck" style="display:none">
  <p style="color: #900">Oh no! It looks like you don't have cookies enabled in your browser.</p>
  <p>Enabling cookies will make for a better experience.</p>
  <a href="/?ds=nc">Click here to continue</a>
</div>

<script type="text/javascript">(function(){

 var a = navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase(),
  dateNow = (new Date()).getTime(),
  exp = new Date(dateNow + 86400000),
  ckval = "",
  url = "/".indexOf("ds=1") >= 0 ? "/" : "/?ds=1",
  jsonO = null,
  xhr = null;


 try {xhr = XMLHttpRequest;}
 catch(e){xhr = null;}

 try {jsonO = JSON;}
 catch(e){jsonO = null;}

 var o = {
  d: "iphone",
  j: jsonO && typeof jsonO.parse === "function" ? 1 : 0,
  x: xhr !== null ? 1 : 0,
  q: typeof document.querySelectorAll === "function" && typeof document.querySelector === "function" ? 1 : 0,
  t: "ontouchstart" in window ? 1 : 0,
  hh: "onhashchange" in window ? 1 : 0,
  p: window.devicePixelRatio || null,
  w: screen.width,
  h: screen.height
 };

 for (var q in o) {
  ckval += q + ":" + o[q] + ",";
 }

 ckval = ckval.slice(0, -1);

 document.cookie = "p=" + encodeURIComponent(ckval) + "; expires=" + exp;


 if(!document.cookie) {
  window.noCookie = true;
 }

 else {
  setTimeout(function(){ window.location.replace(url);}, 100);
 }

})();

</script>

</body></html>

Comment 4

[Karl Dubost💡 :karlcow]

Ah no. Not an xhr call but a redirection to /?ds=1

Let's see


GET /?ds=1 HTTP/1.1
Accept: */*
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, compress
Host: m.cnet.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3



HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Connection: keep-alive
Content-Encoding: gzip
Content-Length: 5294
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 18:18:38 GMT
Server: nginx/1.2.0
X-Powered-By: Express

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD XHTML Mobile 1.2//EN" "http://www.openmobilealliance.org/tech/DTD/xhtml-mobile12.dtd"><html><head><head><title>Home - CNET Mobile</title><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=1"/><link rel="canonical" href="http://www.cnet.com/"/><script>var __pageParams__ =  {
 sid: '1',
 siteid: '1',
 edid:   '4163',
 prtnr:  'CNET Networks, Inc.',
 ptid:   '2000',
 onid:   '1',
 asid:   '0',
 astId:  '1',
 astid:  '1',
 pgnbr:  '1',
 title:  '',
 testname: '',
 testversion: '',
 testgroup: '',
 networkId: '8264'
};

[…] etc.

Comment 5

[Karl Dubost💡 :karlcow]

The person in charge of Platform Infrastructure at CBS Interactive was contacted on 2013-11-22.

Comment 6

[Karl Dubost💡 :karlcow]

So things changed a bit.

Now the Web site stays on 
http://www.cnet.com/

When a mobile is postively identified there is a cookie: "fly_device" set to "mobile"

identified as mobile.
* Chrome Mobile
* Firefox Android 
* Firefox OS


→ http --print=Hh GET http://www.cnet.com/ "User-Agent:  Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 7_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/537.51.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0 Mobile/11A465 Safari/9537.53" | grep fly_device
Set-Cookie: fly_device=mobile; expires=Thu, 10-Apr-2014 07:15:31 GMT; path=/; domain=.cnet.com

→ http --print=Hh GET http://www.cnet.com/ "User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Android; Mobile; rv:18.0) Gecko/18.0 Firefox/18.0" | grep fly_device
Set-Cookie: fly_device=mobile; expires=Thu, 10-Apr-2014 07:15:50 GMT; path=/; domain=.cnet.com

→ http --print=Hh GET http://www.cnet.com/ "User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Mobile; rv:18.0) Gecko/18.0 Firefox/18.0" | grep fly_device
Set-Cookie: fly_device=mobile; expires=Thu, 10-Apr-2014 07:16:01 GMT; path=/; domain=.cnet.com

FIXED!