23 Jun
2013
23 Jun
'13
8:52 a.m.
On Sun, 23 Jun 2013, Liam Proven wrote:
Look it up yourself. I've already done so (many years ago -- Wikipedia
doesn't write itself) and I certainly don't feel the need to look it up
for you. Hint: AT&T, Comcast, COX, Time Warner, and :gasp: AOL have all
done this at various times and various other ISPs (transparent proxies)
and some webhosts (load balancing, caching) /still/ do.
You'll have to walk me through that reasoning. I do not understand or
see what you mean at all.
Let me get this straight...you don't understand how the percentages are
calculated?
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.
You must not get around the web very much, then.
[5 Aug 2012]
: "Our host operates a security perimeter that performs this and other filtering, the
rules simply aren't under our control. The Comodo browser, based on the Chromium
codebase, also sports a u-a that the security perimeter does not allow through."
:
: "I apologize again for the inconvenience and hope you'll be able to stay with
us."
I still don't know why he mentioned Comodo, since that wasn't what I was
using or asking about. I had reported to them that Firefox (nightly
builds) and Lynx (all versions) were not working with their site.
http://yousefourabi.com/blog/2007/10/blocking-bots-with-mod-security/
: "There are two approaches: 1) Block everything but a pre-approved white list, 2)
Allow everything except a pre-denied black list."
The first approach may not be a workable solution, and as stupid as it
might it, that doesn't stop people from _trying_ anyway.
http://www.google.com/ ...
On 22 June 2013 18:29, Tothwolf <tothwolf at
concentric.net> wrote:
It certainly seems like you were, until you just now claimed claimed
otherwise...
: In-Reply-To: <201306211137.HAA10837 at Chip.Rodents-Montreal.ORG>
: Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2013 14:44:00 +0100
: Message-ID: <CAMTenCGtZVXaRstyrQ6_uRT7+vtdUSY1Nd-deXeNHg2PeE57sA at
mail.gmail.com>
: Subject: Re: Devs should be testing on slow machines - Re: What versions of Linux (or
UNIX) are good on old 486 boxes?
: From: Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com>
:
[SNIP]
: There are evidence-backed estimates.
: http://askubuntu.com/questions/80379/how-many-ubuntu-users-are-there-worldw…
: 12-20 million.
: Various other measures estimate around 0.8% to 1.25% of the market:
: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems
: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_uptake#Measuring_desktop_adoption
[SNIP]
: Mac usage is /way/ higher.
: http://www.numberof.net/number%C2%A0of%C2%A0mac%C2%A0users/
:
http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/11/apple-there-are-now-66-million-mac-users-4…
[SNIP]
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_."
Straw Man.
[[Insert giant ASCII middle finger]]
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.