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blufive[The ongoing browser wars, part 1]
A few weeks back, Norwegian browser company Opera published an article alleging that Microsoft had deliberately constructed the MSN website to appear broken in the Opera browser.
After a few weeks, the MSN site quietly changed, and started working properly in the newly-released Opera 7, though it's apparently still broken in earlier versions.
Opera's next step raised a few eyebrows. They released a special version of Opera 7, known as the "Bork" edition. This browser works just like the regular Opera 7, with one difference: if you visit MSN, it translates the page into "bork bork" - the language of the Swedish Chef from the Muppet Show.
I've seen several people comment that this was a childish move, not worthy of a well-behaved business. I disagree.
As you may know, I have a fair understanding of the work required to make web pages function in multiple browsers. Having read the detailed technical discussion of the MSN issue, I agree with Opera's assessment: this wasn't just a case of failing to test in Opera, or not bothering to support a minor browser. MSN was deliberately broken for Opera users.
I have to ask: Who is being more childish here? Microsoft, for breaking their site in a competitor's browser, or the competitor, for complaining about it?
What else could Opera do? They had been reporting the problems to MSN for months without any progress. I've seen similar error reports from mozilla.org disappear into the corporate behemoth that is Microsoft with no discernable effect. The original stories about MSN being broken in Opera generated some comment in web design circles, and got MSN fixed in Opera 7, but did little beyond that.
Maybe they could deploy that great American tradition, a lawsuit? Microsoft has huge financial reserves, and has demonstrated time after time that it is perfectly happy to filibuster court cases until they are moot, or their opponent gives up in disgust. Press coverage of such lawsuits usually amounts to "Oh, look, someone else is suing MS", often accompanied by a flurry of comments like "another bunch of whiners pursue MS in the courts because MS beat them in the marketplace"
If Opera sued MS, they would get squashed like a bug, and/or ridiculed in the press. So they chose another method - a joke.
The Bork edition managed to get far more publicity than the initial article, and seems to have brought smiles to many faces. In doing so, it reminded many people of the possibility that MS might not be playing fair. It also managed to demonstrate that the web is collaboration between web page authors and browser manufacturers, and either side can mess about with things. A success all round, then.
A few weeks back, Norwegian browser company Opera published an article alleging that Microsoft had deliberately constructed the MSN website to appear broken in the Opera browser.
After a few weeks, the MSN site quietly changed, and started working properly in the newly-released Opera 7, though it's apparently still broken in earlier versions.
Opera's next step raised a few eyebrows. They released a special version of Opera 7, known as the "Bork" edition. This browser works just like the regular Opera 7, with one difference: if you visit MSN, it translates the page into "bork bork" - the language of the Swedish Chef from the Muppet Show.
I've seen several people comment that this was a childish move, not worthy of a well-behaved business. I disagree.
As you may know, I have a fair understanding of the work required to make web pages function in multiple browsers. Having read the detailed technical discussion of the MSN issue, I agree with Opera's assessment: this wasn't just a case of failing to test in Opera, or not bothering to support a minor browser. MSN was deliberately broken for Opera users.
I have to ask: Who is being more childish here? Microsoft, for breaking their site in a competitor's browser, or the competitor, for complaining about it?
What else could Opera do? They had been reporting the problems to MSN for months without any progress. I've seen similar error reports from mozilla.org disappear into the corporate behemoth that is Microsoft with no discernable effect. The original stories about MSN being broken in Opera generated some comment in web design circles, and got MSN fixed in Opera 7, but did little beyond that.
Maybe they could deploy that great American tradition, a lawsuit? Microsoft has huge financial reserves, and has demonstrated time after time that it is perfectly happy to filibuster court cases until they are moot, or their opponent gives up in disgust. Press coverage of such lawsuits usually amounts to "Oh, look, someone else is suing MS", often accompanied by a flurry of comments like "another bunch of whiners pursue MS in the courts because MS beat them in the marketplace"
If Opera sued MS, they would get squashed like a bug, and/or ridiculed in the press. So they chose another method - a joke.
The Bork edition managed to get far more publicity than the initial article, and seems to have brought smiles to many faces. In doing so, it reminded many people of the possibility that MS might not be playing fair. It also managed to demonstrate that the web is collaboration between web page authors and browser manufacturers, and either side can mess about with things. A success all round, then.
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Date: 2003-03-16 16:01 (UTC)If MS just served Opera the same code as they served IE, and it didn't work, I'd be happy(ish). But it's been demonstrated that Opera can handle the IE version perfectly. So why are MS explicitly detecting Opera and sending it different (crappy) code?
Like I said, I've seen mozilla caught in the same trap. Now, there are parts of MSDN that don't work in Moz because they use ActiveX. Fair enough. But there are also parts of MSDN that don't work in moz because they're being given different HTML from what IE gets. The IE version works fine in Moz and when mozilla.org or Netscape contact MS, they get the brush off, or "we'll fix it in the next rewrite", followed by silence.
I see a lot of cruddy HTML and browser detection when I'm triaging bugs in bugzilla. Some of them are just dumb coders. Some of them are pages that were written 4 years ago and never updated. Some are pages that have been explicitly designed to only work in 1/2 browsers, and damn the rest.
Remember MS's lockout of non-IE/Netscape browsers from Passport? That looked like a plain dumb screwup. But this one looks to be very deliberate, and carefully-aimed.
Re:
Date: 2003-03-16 23:51 (UTC)(But then I am a firm believer in the cock-up theory of history)