Re: Iceweasel and Firefox compatibility

[John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org>]

Mike Hommey wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 08:54:41AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote:
>> Mike Hommey wrote:
>>> On Mon, Nov 09, 2009 at 10:12:07AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote:
>>>> Hi everyone,
>>>>
>>>> The fact that Iceweasel does not behave like Firefox in some important
>>>> areas has been bothering me more and more of late.  Iceweasel breaks
>>>> many, many web apps by virtue of not using the Firefox user-agent
>>>> string.  It also breaks compatibility with some plugins.
>>> I just decided I don't care anymore. So here is a deal to those reading
>>> this thread. Give me a UA string that:
>>> - Doesn't claim to be Firefox (i.e keep Iceweasel in it)
>> Would it meet your requirements if it said something like "Linux;
>> Debian-Iceweasel" down deep in it somewhere?  We could keep Firefox
>> where people expect it, and add Iceweasel deep in it?
> 
> That sounds like claiming to be Firefox, with a small note saying it's
> actually Iceweasel. I'm much more in favor of keeping the Iceweasel
> string as it is and adding something, this something having to be
> defined.

But that's really what the situation is, isn't it?  I really don't see
the need to put Iceweasel in there anywhere, but I think it can be done
without causing too much trouble.

> Let me suggest adding "(like Firefox/3.5)", but I'm not sure how the
> crappy sites parsing the version number will deal with the closing
> parenthesis.

I would not expect that to achieve the same level of compatibility.

-- John