Changes to firefox FC3

[Christopher Aillon]

Sean Bruno wrote:
> Rule #1:  Define the problem prior to beginning a rant.
> Rule #2:  See Rule #1
> 
> So, I violated the first rule of asking for help by not defining my
> issue.  Let me attempt to give you folks ACTUAL information instead of
> just saying "it's broke!"
> 
> I take on-line classes through the University of Maryland.  They have a
> fancy web based interface that appears to "require" JavaScript 1.5
> 
> If your web browser doesn't support JS 1.5, you can login to their
> services, but some of the frames in their site will generate errors
> stating that you don't have the proper version of java script.
> 
> They have a test page to see if your web browser supports JS 1.5 here:
> http://tychousa1.umuc.edu/sys/browserinfo.html

Their script to detect this is broken:

http://tychousa1.umuc.edu/js/browsercheck.js

    this.fx = ((agt.indexOf('mozilla/5')!=-1) && (agt.indexOf('spoofer')==-1) &&
                 (agt.indexOf('compatible')==-1) && (agt.indexOf('opera')==-1)  &&
                 (agt.indexOf('webtv')==-1) && (agt.indexOf('hotjava')==-1)     &&
                 (this.gecko) && (navigator.vendor=="Firefox"));

They check that the vendor is "Firefox" which is not always true.  For FC3, it is "Fedora".  The fact that FIrefox 1.0 used a vendor string for "Firefox" is actually broken behavior, which I filed upstream a bit ago, and will be fixed in Firefox 1.1 (its already checked into cvs HEAD), so their script will not work as they expect in Firefox 1.1 as it is.  Additionally, they are not even testing JavaScript versions, but rather just looking for a few browsers, so their test is going to be flawed by definition.

> 
> This is the page that I used to determine the JS version as I am not
> savvy enough to poke through the firefox code to determine what version
> is in the application.  This is how I came up with this table:
> 
> rpm version             JS version
> 1.0-2.fc3               1.5
> 1.0.1-1.3.1             1.4
> 1.0.1-1.3.2             1.4
> 1.0.2-1.3.1             1.4
> 
> I installed the various FC3 versions of firefox and clicked on the link
> above and wrote down the java script version that was detected.  If I
> use the 1.0.2 from mozilla.org, I get JS version 1.5 which is different
> behavior from the the 1.0.2 from FC3.
> 
> I believe this to be an issue with firefox in FC3, not an issue with
> firefox itself.  Comments?


Sorry to dissapoint you, but I'd recommend you talk to the web admin at your school instead.  Usually most websites that do these sorts of checks have no good reason to do so, anyway.