Are you a browser switcher or a user agent switcher ?
By topffer
@topffer (42156)
France
March 9, 2010 11:23am CST
I'm mostly surfing the web with a light internet suite based on Firefox and Thunderbird, called Seamonkey. Seamonkey identifies itself as Seamonkey : a cat is a cat and Seamonkey is Seamonkey, where is the problem ? Well, a lot of sites don't want to deal with it :
When I want to log in my Microsoft Skydrive account, I get an XML parsing error and can't even see the page !
When I want to log in my email account at GMX, I read in a rose frame : " ! To take full advantage of GMX we recommend downloading Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 3 or Safari 3." It's a very firm recommandation : I'm unable to log in :(
Everything works fine when I switch an user agent -- it's an add-on -- identifying Seamonkey as Firefox.
Everybody has such problems when surfing the web. In this case, are you a browser switcher or a user agent switcher, or... ?
1 person likes this
2 responses
@pierone (1894)
• Italy
14 May 10
No, never faced this problem, maybe because I use firefox.
The only problem I found is with my bank. They use a "security" activeX! (sic!) So I must use a windows machine with IE to can operate my online banking. Isn't something crazy?
Midori seems interesting. Have you tried it? If yes, what is your opinion? (also if, if you use seamonkey, it should means you prefere this one to midori).
1 person likes this
@topffer (42156)
• France
14 May 10
Lol for the bank account with an activeX ! It is too funny ! I am a bit paranoid with my bank and e-currencies accounts, and I check them only with a fresh Linux LiveCD.
Firefox is a reference and you can't have a problem with it. Midori is a light browser, very fast but not complete. I am downloading every month one or two new distributions of Linux to try them, and I found Midori as a default browser only in PCLinuxOS. I think it is not a good choice for a default browser.
SeaMonkey helped me to solve my low memory problem with Firefox ; it is a zen version of Firefox, not so good -- except for the included mail in the suite, based on Thunderbird --, but as my main add-ons were working with it, I was happy to find it, but I would have been more happy if he had identified itself as Firefox. The User Agent Switcher add-on is perfect for this when I have a problem with a site.
@tonyllenium (6252)
• Italy
23 Mar 10
No i neever had this kind of prblems as regards surfing and internet browsers!!Normally i use firefox and even if i tried some others browsers or i have ,if i use windows os,internet explorer installed..so the majority of times i will prefer firefox and so never faced to these problems!!
@topffer (42156)
• France
23 Mar 10
I'm using Firefox under Windows, and have no problem with it. But my Linux notebook has only one meg of RAM, and Firefox was crashing too often, it's why I replace it with SeaMonkey : it uses a less memory greedy version of Firefox -- with less possibilities -- and doesn't freeze, but identifies itself badly as "SeaMonkey", and the user agent switcher add-on helps a lot.
The developer of Midori -- a small browser based on the same Webkit than Safari -- saw this problem : the last version identifies Midori as "Firefox 3.8". Why 3.8 ? He is a clever guy : to forbid Midori users to try to install Firefox add-ons ! When Firefox will have a 3.8 update, Midori will be probably a "Firefox 3.99" 
