• O'Shea (unregistered) in reply to Christoph Wagner
    Christoph Wagner:
    Why would it be a bad idea to sniff out browsers (or rather sniff supported features depending on your definition of browser sniffing) to provide additional features to the User?
    Obvious troll is obvious
  • smcphaed (unregistered)

    Hm...would an Asus Transformer Book be a good replacement for my Chromebook?

    Oh, wait...I can't read their site using my Chromebook.

  • Horse (unregistered) in reply to Coyne
    Coyne:
    n/a:
    Well, it is a Win8 gadget. They really intend to keep desktop Linux/BSD users from being their customers, as is apparent here.

    Yeah and whatever happened to he "interwebs are like roads" motif?

    "Our car works everywhere except Montana and Wyoming; we don't like those states."

    "You can only drive on toll roads that are owned by General Motors."

    "Well, it might drive on California roads; but that's a liberal state and so we can't provide any guarantee."

    "That car you bought from us last month? It's no longer supported on your town's roads. Refund? Ha ha ha ha..."

    Seriously, it's time for some kickback. Site uses Flash? Tell them to change to HTML 5. Site uses QuickTime? Same thing. Site can't do decent defaults for an unknown browser? Don't visit. Browser doesn't handle a lot of sites? Download another one.

    I am seriously tired of "feudal web".

    Can't drive your left hand drive cars over here (well you can, but it's a special case {permit}).

  • Horse (unregistered) in reply to Horse
    Horse:
    Coyne:
    n/a:
    Well, it is a Win8 gadget. They really intend to keep desktop Linux/BSD users from being their customers, as is apparent here.

    Yeah and whatever happened to he "interwebs are like roads" motif?

    "Our car works everywhere except Montana and Wyoming; we don't like those states."

    "You can only drive on toll roads that are owned by General Motors."

    "Well, it might drive on California roads; but that's a liberal state and so we can't provide any guarantee."

    "That car you bought from us last month? It's no longer supported on your town's roads. Refund? Ha ha ha ha..."

    Seriously, it's time for some kickback. Site uses Flash? Tell them to change to HTML 5. Site uses QuickTime? Same thing. Site can't do decent defaults for an unknown browser? Don't visit. Browser doesn't handle a lot of sites? Download another one.

    I am seriously tired of "feudal web".

    Can't drive your left hand drive cars over here (well you can, but it's a special case {permit}).
    Acutally there's all sorts of size, weight and arbitrary bans that stop some foreign cars driving on our roads...

  • passingby (unregistered) in reply to The MAZZTer
    The MAZZTer:
    Am I the first to notice that both branches of the if statement do the exact same thing?

    That's the real WTF. Plus the empty ifs. The real real WTF is the discussion about to do or not to do browser sniffing to reach.. nothing :)

  • Notepid (unregistered) in reply to Ken

    [quote user="Ken"][quote user="F"] Then, we build a separate network for nerds only. It has to be hard to use -- hard to connect, hard to configure, hard to navigate. Hard enough that the marketdroids, bleeding heart nincompoops, politicians and whatnot can never see what's there.

    Only then can we have our freedoms back. We can do it. We did it the first time. Our only mistake was inviting the gutter snipes to come play in our kingdom.[/quote]

    Sounds to me what you are describing is the good old BBS systems. Example: http://www.telnetbbsguide.com/

  • (cs)

    I want the days of FrontPage back... best sites ever!

  • Todd (unregistered)

    That's too bad on numerous levels. I'm using a transformer pad right now & it's awesome! It's not Windows 8 based, it's Jellybean flavor. So it's bad for Asus that they're not doing a good job representing themselves.

    I would recommend looking beyond their website though.

  • Norman Diamond (unregistered) in reply to Captcha:sagaciter
    Captcha:sagaciter:
    Now that you mention "gadget", the "Desktop gadget" for Asus WebStorage's shitty "note sync" service doesn't work unless your locale is set to English or Korean. I'd report it to them but I'm scared of having to navigate their their broken websites in broken English.
    That's hilarious. Is their Korean as broken as their English? Not only does Korean grammar differ more extensively from Chinese grammar than English does, but Korean uses a unique alphabet that Chinese readers can't read even just to pronounce.

    That reminds me of the sidebar article "The undead Microsoft account", but the comparison isn't exact. A Microsoft page worked in Spanish but not in English, but the Spanish alphabet overlaps a lot with English, part of Microsoft's home country actually uses Spanish. Also I think they said the page displayed in Microsoft's own language (English), even though its functions didn't operate properly in English.

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to Chris

    The SOLE instance in which it is EVER OK to sniff the browser is to intentionally detect a specific, non-functioning browser version.

    The problem with "detecting IE 6/7," like so many morons keep vomiting forth, is that their piece of shit, poorly written "detection" breaks IE8, 9, and 10, despite each of them working fine for the same case.

  • Apeiron (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    The *SOLE* instance in which it is *EVER* OK to sniff the browser is to intentionally detect a specific, non-functioning browser version.

    The problem with "detecting IE 6/7," like so many morons keep vomiting forth, is that their piece of shit, poorly written "detection" breaks IE8, 9, and 10, despite each of them working fine for the same case.

    Personally, I'd choose to just block all IE versions (or at least not actively support them) on principle of not wanting to have to deal with supporting any version of it, given the choice. I wish all devs would do that, or at least refuse to support IE below 8. How'd that go.. 90% of web dev work is working around problems in IE.

  • Amakudari (unregistered)

    WTFs:

    1. Three methods of string matching: search (without regexes, no less!) greater than -1, indexOf equal to 0 and match
    2. Browser sniffing. There is no discussion worth having here; a site with this little sophistication doesn't need it.
    3. Why does it skip over MSIE 8-9? Shouldn't they at least be included with MSIE 7 instead of MSIE 6, featurewise? File under why browser sniffing is bad.
    4. if(condition){} - Worse than commenting out code: leaving it there because it has no side effects. Stupid whether optimized away or not.
    5. Oh, hey, apparently they know match exists and know at least something about regex; but they aren't even using /Win|Mac/ or /iP(hone|od)/ ? Not necessary, but hey, as long as we're going down the rabbit hole of browser sniffing...
    6. No switch here? Really? There's no default.
    7. And for that matter, you can even get by without a switch by just declaring your variables. var webMode; at the top of the function actually fixes the later comparison.
    8. Oh, good, I was worried we wouldn't get to commented-out code.
    9. if a then b else b - Genius when a can break
    10. Tabs xor spaces for indentation

    You sense it's sincere, an earnest attempt to ape halfway-competent code, and there's a slightly endearing quality in its abject failure. Very slightly. Most impressive is that, due to the complete lack of consistency littering the code is that clearly several eyes have seen this code.

  • Cheong (unregistered)

    Btw, the W3C should mark Navigator as obsolute. Javascripts must check if some property/method is null instead if using browser detection.

    For CSS browser detection can be justified because the files are static and may need workaround for some version, but can add requirement that if browser specific tag is used, fallback must be specified.

  • The_Dude (unregistered)

    How can anyone know about the javascript module pattern, but not know the difference between local and global variables? Why should even bother wrapping your code in an anonymous function if you use global variables anyway?

    BTW: The comment on the first line made my day!

  • (cs) in reply to Horse
    Horse:
    Horse:
    Coyne:
    n/a:
    Well, it is a Win8 gadget. They really intend to keep desktop Linux/BSD users from being their customers, as is apparent here.

    Yeah and whatever happened to he "interwebs are like roads" motif?

    "Our car works everywhere except Montana and Wyoming; we don't like those states."

    "You can only drive on toll roads that are owned by General Motors."

    "Well, it might drive on California roads; but that's a liberal state and so we can't provide any guarantee."

    "That car you bought from us last month? It's no longer supported on your town's roads. Refund? Ha ha ha ha..."

    Seriously, it's time for some kickback. Site uses Flash? Tell them to change to HTML 5. Site uses QuickTime? Same thing. Site can't do decent defaults for an unknown browser? Don't visit. Browser doesn't handle a lot of sites? Download another one.

    I am seriously tired of "feudal web".

    Can't drive your left hand drive cars over here (well you can, but it's a special case {permit}).
    Acutally there's all sorts of size, weight and arbitrary bans that stop some foreign cars driving on our roads...

    And both of those statements are true: Except that no one went out and deliberately designed U.S. roads to not carry foreign cars or vice-versa.

    But that is what these companies are doing.

    "Your iPhone does QuickTime: If you can't view a site, be a good serf and tell the site to change to QuickTime."

    "Your Android is now a second class citizen because we decided we don't want to support the Flash used in bazillions of web sites, in that environment."

    "You can watch free videos on our site, but if you watch a video from YouTube, we'll soak you for an exorbitant data fee."

    "You are MY serfs!!!! How could you be so disloyal as to want to visit a site I didn't approve? Or use an app I didn't approve? Or use my app on a device I didn't sell you? I made your device to sell my apps and my apps to sell my device and both for the web I approve of, and if you want to use them in any other combination or for any purpose I didn't think of, BOO HOO TOO BAD."

    Down with feudal web!

  • (cs)

    TRWTF is client-side rather than server-side browser sniffing.

    Another TRWTF is "ASUS recommends Windows 8".

  • x (unregistered)

    The browser is this core

  • satmd (unregistered)

    Scratch the function and just add the plain <link...>.

    Nobody noticed yet how both legs of the if statement are supposed to do the same?

  • Andrew (unregistered)

    TRWTF is these pussies saying they can't make a website look the same across all browsers/platforms. HTML is for markup, CSS is for consistency. Either figure it out or move on and find something your good at.

    Regarding the code in the article, what can I say. A) Don't use JavaScript to load your boilerplate CSS and B) Browser sniffing? Really? Didn't we stop that well over ten years ago when we decide that feature sniffing was the way to go and then left it up to libraries like jQuery to do. That is some downright embarrassing code right there.

  • Tractor (unregistered) in reply to NH
    NH:
    I only sniff browser for statistical reasons - to check what people actually are using and to try to test the web pages with the most common alternatives for the moment.

    And most of the special handling is actually for IE while other browsers seems to accept standard pretty well.

    Most IE incompatibilities can be fixed by using conditional comments to include a stylesheet for IE. While still ugly, it is much more elegant than looking at the user agent string. No knowing what will happen to it in newer versions. And if you really, really must insist you can also include a script with conditional comments.

  • (cs)

    The real WTF is that the actual error is just a missing "var webMode", but people go on and on about browser sniffing or whatnot... The other real WTF is that the code does not in fact implement any differences at all for any of the browsers and cases, it always does exactly the same in the end, if it works. They could have included the stylesheet directly, so all this js remains just a big No-Op that happens to break badly.

  • Neil (unregistered) in reply to Apeiron
    Apeiron:
    Personally, I'd choose to just block all IE versions (or at least not actively support them) on principle of not wanting to have to deal with supporting any version of it, given the choice. I wish all devs would do that, or at least refuse to support IE below 8. How'd that go.. 90% of web dev work is working around problems in IE.
    I'm not keen on sites that simply block IE < N. If I want the latest and greatest version of the site I realise I might need to download a browser that won't be released for another month to enjoy it. In the mean time you should at least serve me the content and let me laugh at its pathetic attempts to render it. (Except Twitter, whose mobile site is impressively still IE6 compatible!)
  • Neil (unregistered)

    "Google瀏覽器是用這核心" ("Google Chrome is this core"?) seems to derive from demo.tc/Post/366

  • Jon Jermey (unregistered)

    Hey, you didn't mention that the second MENU button blinks!

  • (cs) in reply to Kushan
    Kushan:
    KentGeek:
    This would be hilarious in 2005. In 2013, it's sad. It appears not to work at all on Chrome on Windows (not surprising, based on that Javascript).

    Working just fine on Chrome/Windows 7 here?

    That is/was a troll and you bite like fool.

  • (cs) in reply to Andrew
    Andrew:
    Either figure it out or move on and find something your good at.
    Such as grammar? (emphasis added)
  • Meep (unregistered) in reply to Cheong
    Cheong:
    Btw, the W3C should mark Navigator as obsolute. Javascripts must check if some property/method is null instead if using browser detection.

    While they're at it, W3C should tell folks in the Middle East to quit killing each other.

  • (cs) in reply to Apeiron
    Apeiron:
    Personally, I'd choose to just block all IE versions (or at least not actively support them) on principle of not wanting to have to deal with supporting any version of it, given the choice. I wish all devs would do that, or at least refuse to support IE below 8. How'd that go.. 90% of web dev work is working around problems in IE.
    An australian webshop invented a solution to that problem: The IE7-Tax!
  • Ron (unregistered)

    The real wtf is the posting about the asus wtf is rendering horribly on my iPad 2... It sizes so the whole posting fits vertically in landscape mode, which makes it about 3" wide and completely un-viewable and un-readable

  • Logan (unregistered) in reply to RaceProUK
    RaceProUK:
    Andy:
    First rule of browser sniffing: Don't do it.

    Second rule of browser sniffing (only for experts): Don't do it.

    Last rule of browser sniffing: Use an existing library and provide a sane default.

    ~Andy

    Almost. I'd go for the following:

    First rule of browser sniffing: Don't do it. Second rule of browser sniffing: Seriously, don't do it. Third rule of browser sniffing: If you do it, I will remove your reproductive organs slowly with a cheese grater.

    CSS3 now lets you use conditional reasoning in your stylesheets to dynamically adjust styles by a number of different factors that are independent of browser.

    Obviously certain rules would still be restricted by browser support though. If we as developers are lucky, IE will either die soon or it'll have full support for this before WE die...

  • RandomGuest (unregistered)

    I contacted the Asus support line and explained to them what was going on (including a link to this article and my own screenshot for their records), and they fixed it rather quickly.

    The fix? Adding a "webMode = "PC";" line prior to the IF statements.

  • Amakudari (unregistered) in reply to RandomGuest
    RandomGuest:
    I contacted the Asus support line and explained to them what was going on (including a link to this article and my own screenshot for their records), and they fixed it rather quickly.

    The fix? Adding a "webMode = "PC";" line prior to the IF statements.

    And now they've kept the webMode and all the browser sniffing... and removed the conditional that checks webMode. So now the site breaks if you block JavaScript, because you need that to be dynamic and append a stylesheet to <head>.

    Is the fix the TRWTF?

  • (nodebb)

    Wow, looks fantastic! My time in college wasn't interesting, so I don't miss it. My teachers never gave me good grades despite the amount of time I spent on my tasks, so I came to professional essay writing services where experienced writers can write for me. I believe it is the finest approach to save time, and because of them, I was able to concentrate on duties that were more important.

    Addendum 2022-10-25 13:59: Wow, looks fantastic! My time in college wasn't interesting, so I don't miss it. My teachers never gave me good grades despite the amount of time I spent on my tasks, so I came to professional essay writing services where experienced writers can write for me. I believe it is the finest approach to save time, and because of them, I was able to concentrate on duties that were more important.

  • Thomas White (unregistered)
    Comment held for moderation.

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