Overwritten.net
Community => General Discussion => Topic started by: scottws on Saturday, November 15, 2008, 09:26:46 PM
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Some of you may know that I've been using a laptop running Kubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron (used to be 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon) for a while now in addition to my Windows Vista x64 desktop. Well, something interesting happened today that really got my blood boiling.
Jennie uses the laptop all the time too. At first she hated it because it was a little bit different than Windows (actually it was more about the difference between Firefox and Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Office and OpenOffice than it was about the actual OS), but she got used to it and generally doesn't have any issues she tells me about.
Well today she told me that she couldn't send any e-mail from her Hotmail account. Hotmail, of course, is owned by Microsoft. She tells me she usually doesn't try to send e-mail from the laptop so she's not sure if it's always been a problem. Wondering what she's talking about regarding not being able to send e-mail, I check it out. Well, the whole field where you type the body is completely disabled. You simply can't put your cursor there. There are also some controls at the top where you can change the font and mess with other formatting that are disabled.
I was like, "This is weird." I thought maybe it was something stupid and rebooted the laptop, which is something I rarely do since I usually just suspend it. But after it came back from the reboot, it was still the same. The laptop uses Firefox 3.0.3. I have 3.0.4 on the Vista desktop, so I tried Hotmail on the Vista computer with Firefox. It worked fine. I'm like, "Hmm... maybe it's a Fx 3.0.3 bug," so I tried Hotmail on a virtual machine I have running Windows XP that is still on Firefox 3.0.3. It too worked fine.
I got to thinking... you know what? What if Microsoft is, in a way, punishing us for using a non-Microsoft OS? I wouldn't put it past them. After all, similar types of behavior are what turned me on to Linux in the first place.
On the laptop, the Firefox user agent is currently Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008092510 Ubuntu/8.04 (hardy) Firefox/3.0.3. I decided to test something. I found a user agent switcher add-on for Firefox, and I pulled the user agent out of the XP virtual machine's Firefox and changed my user agent on the laptop to Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008092417 Firefox/3.0.3, essentially telling websites that I was running Firefox 3.0.3 on Windows XP even though I was really on Kubuntu. Then I refreshed the page. Voila! The text formatting tools and body field were enabled!
Nothing is different. I am still running Firefox 3.0.3 on Kubuntu 8.0.4 with the same plugins and extensions as before, the only difference being that I'm telling Hotmail (Microsoft) that I'm using Windows XP instead of (K)ubuntu. The rendering engine is identical on both operating systems and the user agent switch proves that my setup can handle Hotmail properly. Microsoft is basically blocking us simply because we are using Linux (or because we aren't using Windows). It's completely ridiculous.
Here's screenshots to prove it. Note the toolbar for the formatting above the body field with the Linux user agent vs. the Windows one.
Hotmail on Firefox with Linux user agent (http://scottws.zapto.org/pictures/hotmail_linux_user_agent.png)
Hotmail on Firefox with Windows user agent (http://scottws.zapto.org/pictures/hotmail_windows_user_agent.png)
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I'd type something about this if my PC wasn't still fucked, but since it is I'll just agree that that's pretty damned shady.
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Yeah, this popped up on slashdot or something a few days ago. Really stupid thing for them to do.
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I guess they tried to roll this in with the new hotmail update?
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The new Hotmail update has me seeing red. I only get this tiny window to type in now, and I can't scroll the banner and menus up to get the viewing window to fill the screen. The net result is about a third of my former real estate for viewing is gone (and the tiny reply window is a crock of shit).
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I just use outlook. I actually log into hotmail maybe once a year.
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The new Hotmail update has me seeing red. I only get this tiny window to type in now, and I can't scroll the banner and menus up to get the viewing window to fill the screen. The net result is about a third of my former real estate for viewing is gone (and the tiny reply window is a crock of shit).
That's garbage. I don't really use hotmail all that often so I haven't noticed yet but it sounds like the interface for one of my shitty school email systems.
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Yeah, this popped up on slashdot or something a few days ago. Really stupid thing for them to do.
Do you have a link? I can't seem to find it.
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Hmmm, guess it wasnt slashdot. I don't remember where I saw it, maybe digg. I believe the link I am thinking of is this one (http://linux-watch.com/news/NS6023147333.html).
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Since I've posted that, I have found lots of stuff dated 11/7 and 11/8 that says you don't seem to be able to create a Hotmail account using a Linux OS but I haven't seen anyone complaining about the issue I had.
Some people seem to be refraining from jumping to conclusions by saying it is probably just a mistake and/or poor programming practices rather than intentional posturing on the part of Microsoft. Basically saying that maybe its looking for exact user agent strings instead of properly parsing them.
If I get some time today, I'm going to test a few other user agent strings, such as replacing "Linux" and "Ubuntu" and maybe "X11" with gibberish.
If if works with gibberish replacing those strings, I think it comes close to proving that Microsoft is specifically looking for Linux-related user agent strings and crippling Linux users intentionally.
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It's pretty lame of them to do that.
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Is it bad that I am not too surprised?
It's still bad, though. I'll certainly be using Linux again when I kick this WoW addiction.
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Aw. Turns out Microsoft isn't being evil or shady, just dumb. I tried this user agent:
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008092510 Firefox/3.0.3
...instead of...
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008092510 Ubuntu/8.04 (hardy) Firefox/3.0.3
...and it works fine. It just doesn't seem to like the Ubuntu/8.04 (hardy) in between the Gecko/########## and Firefox/3.0.3.
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Another perfectly legitimate conspiracy theory shot down. I guess we can go back to musing about the government instead.
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THAT'S WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO THINK
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This has still inspired me to switch back to Linux, shadiness or not. WoW is pretty well supported, it seems. If I have trouble, I can always purchase Crossover Games' pre-configured and supported version of WINE for WoW/Orange Box/etc.
Ubuntu, here I come! I've missed thee!
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DON'T DO IT SON!