23 Jun
2013
23 Jun
'13
6:15 a.m.
On 22 June 2013 18:29, Tothwolf <tothwolf at concentric.net> wrote:
You'll have to walk me through that reasoning. I do not understand or
see what you mean at all.
No, it isn't unheard of, rather it is actually quite a common practice due
to bonehead server administrators running software such as 'mod_security'
along with rules that only allow browsers with "popular" useragents to
access sites (on the false premise that the other useragents are faked
and/or are "hackers" trying to break into their website, and that
"blocking"
them makes their website more secure). Assuming that this is a rare 1990s
practice and that no-one really does this anymore would be rather foolish.
In fact, I ran into this issue with Consumer Reports website last year and
took the time to try to educate them. Their reply? "We outsource our web
administration and they can't fix it."
Again, [[citation needed]]. I've been a desktop Linux user full-time
for a decade now, and part-time for about 6-7y before that. I have
encountered this problem so very, *very* seldom it is not a factor and
has not been this century.
On Fri, 21 Jun 2013, Liam Proven wrote:
Are we?
I thought I was talking about networkable X.11, which by and large
doesn't really apply to servers. I don't know what you feel that we're
talking about.
On 21 June 2013 15:21, Tothwolf <tothwolf at concentric.net> wrote:
We are talking about usage share. Most servers do not show up in browser and http
server estimates
Who's talking about servers? We all know Linux is really strong in
servers. No argument there. Just as you cannot accurately measure the
number of servers out there that make use Linux, you similarly cannot
/accurately/ measure the number of workstations which make use of Linux.
Definte "accurately", with your idea of acceptable error bars, and
compare those to the accuracy of figures for Macs and Windows.
*I* find the figures acceptable, myself.
Those that tamper with the headers more often than not
either strip the
useragent or replace it with their own useragent.
[[Citation needed]]
More to the point, some kind of evidence that this is a significant
factor. TBH it sounds like special pleading to me: "we don't know how
many desktop Linux users are, we can't know, but probably there are
more than reported and logged because lots of them are _hiding_."
Either way,
such things would affect /all/ users on all platforms, no?
Yes, however given Microsoft's market share, it is going to skew the numbers
for operating systems such as Linux more than it would for Microsoft
Windows. That isn't even taking into account that many
Linux users end up
configuring their browsers to report false user agent strings
Very very rare, IME.
in order to force the numerous broken websites
out
there to still work with browsers other than Firefox and Internet
Explorer
under MS Windows.
That way something the hardcore did in the 1990s. It's unheard-of now.
I see a broken site a few times a /decade./ Moreover, these browser-based usage share meters all
share another common
fault -- they only make one report per IP address per sample window, which
is usually 24 hours (although some only take one sample per IP every 7
days). This means if you have a NAT router (who doesn't?) and have say a
Mac, and Windows PC, and a Linux workstation, only the first used in that
sample window is going to be recorded, and there is no real way of knowing
which website you visit is doing the sampling. If you also have a smartphone
connected to your NAT via WiFi, then that smartphone's useragent is going to
be the one recorded for your IP during the sample window. This affects usage
numbers for the "less common" operating systems more than the "more
popular"
operating systems, because operating systems such as Microsoft Windows have
a larger market share.
That one is interesting, I'll give you. I've not heard that before and
you do have a possible point there, although once again, I'd like to
see some actual evidence that it was occurring.
--
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