What to do? Maybe there are more BSD desktop users?

resora

resora

Good day, dear colleagues. I think everyone has already noticed that when you visit a website that shows your browser and version, if you are using FreeBSD, it often identifies you as Linux, even though that’s not correct.
I am a desktop FreeBSD user, and when I register in WhatsApp Chromium, it tells me my operating system is Linux.

Perhaps there aren’t that many Linux desktop users, and a significant portion of the percentage counted as Linux users are actually BSD users—or maybe even users of other UNIX systems. If there are enough of us, perhaps software developers will add proper FreeBSD support for package creation and maintenance.

For example, I installed FreeCAD and KiCAD, and I also donated to their projects when possible. Everything works perfectly.
I would really like to see more support for projects such as Espressif IDF, Arduino, and others.
 
Maturin said:
We had this point already somewhere.
When i recall corretcly, the point simply is, if you(r browser) don't identify with some "commonly known and accepted" OS, then many websites simply refuse to work correctly, or block you complelety.
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Is that part of the User Agent string or something? Some browsers let you change that I think
 
How to detect low-quality contributions here and elsewhere? Look for terms like "I think", "if I'm not mistaken", "I don't use it but" ... etc.

What I'm going to offer is this evidence (on FreeBSD of course):
firefox-esr-140.7.0_4,2
user-agent string from logfile: "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/115.0"
Click to expand...

But be aware that JavaScript may be able to detect your real OS and real version of the browser if you allow such scripts.
 
A few years ago, Firefox on FreeBSD used to identify itself as FreeBSD.
It caused problems with major websites like large US banks and newspapers. A lot of sites either flag your system as either not up to date or as mobile if they do not recognise the browser and OS. At that time, users had to change their User Agent string to Linux themselves (and remember to update the version number if you weren't using a plugin!)
This is simply avoiding that issue.
 
Not sure what websites break with non-Linux reporting, but it seems odd to specify non-FreeBSD by default (Firefox isn't running in Linuxulator)

jwillia3 said:
A few years ago, Firefox on FreeBSD used to identify itself as FreeBSD.
It caused problems with major websites like large US banks and newspapers. A lot of sites either flag your system as either not up to date or as mobile if they do not recognise the browser and OS. At that time, users had to change their User Agent string to Linux themselves (and remember to update the version number if you weren't using a plugin!)
This is simply avoiding that issue.
Click to expand...
I wonder if it'd be cooler to have Firefox on FreeBSD default to FreeBSD UA, but have a weak dep on a package to force different UA? I'd be interested in reporting FreeBSD use and don't imagine I browse websites that'd break with non-mainstream UA (I don't bank :p)

Windows is Windows. Linux usually fakes Windows to chase compat. Why's FreeBSD as a unique OS chasing Linux out-the-box? Linux isn't Windows, and FreeBSD isn't Linux; end-users know it, so why not tell content servers? They're probably not using Windows :cool:

Compat is done with popularity; how would websites know to respect an OS if that OS doesn't technically exist? Yeah a bank website probably can lazily block non-Windows/macOS/Linux/mobile if no customer is visibly bothering trying to connect from something else (might be a wake-up call to let them try to tell you all about your apparent insecure conditions while they're holding your money :p)
 
A rule for knowledgeable web developers was to never use the user agent for anything because it could be forged. It's a useless metric. If one just follows the standards you would never have any issues except those related to specific browsers but there are tests for that.
 
Espionage724, while I can agree with the sentiment, I doubt there are enough FreeBSD desktop users to make web developers sit up and notice. Many web developers don't even test on Firefox. I doubt you'll get anything more than a chuckle from asking them to test on Firefox and FreeBSD.
 
POSIX.1 said:
Look for terms like "I think", "if I'm not mistaken", "I don't use it but" ... etc.
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This would usually mean the post is in high quality, as it warns not to blindly believe the post. And questions are often unclear that requires many assumptions to answer. Unfortunate fact, though.
 
For web sites, I think what the hosts need to do is to lim.100% (absolute 100% should not be possible!) construct their site to be compliant with de-jure standards (at worsr, RFCs are officially published) and requiring browsers to be compliant, too. Not rejecting by browser nor OS.
They should officially state any issues should go to the developers of the browsers and OS'es to fix compliants. And not to allow reaching to the final submission page if anything doesn't work as standards defines.
 
T-Aoki said:
For web sites, I think what the hosts need to do is to lim.100% (absolute 100% should not be possible!) construct their site to be compliant with de-jure standards (at worsr, RFCs are officially published) and requiring browsers to be compliant, too. Not rejecting by browser nor OS.
Click to expand...

These times, the times of the Robustness Principle. are over. Nowadays the question is: is this client trustworthy as a consumer? And it is trustworthy when it runs a consumer-style computer, a consumer-style browser and is connected by a consumer-style provider.
Everything else is not trustworthy and even less warrants any effort.

In former times the demands of the customer were respected. Nowadays the Internet as a distribution channel pays off: the customer is an anonymous entity, and businesses can afford to tell the 5% with out-of-line expectations simply to piss off, meanwhile intensifying the marketing efforts and increasing their share from the remaining 95%.
 
PMc said:
These times, the times of the Robustness Principle. are over. Nowadays the question is: is this client trustworthy as a consumer? And it is trustworthy when it runs a consumer-style computer, a consumer-style browser and is connected by a consumer-style provider.
Everything else is not trustworthy and even less warrants any effort.

In former times the demands of the customer were respected. Nowadays the Internet as a distribution channel pays off: the customer is an anonymous entity, and businesses can afford to tell the 5% with out-of-line expectations simply to piss off, meanwhile intensifying the marketing efforts and increasing their share from the remaining 95%.
Click to expand...
So what is mandatory is forcible international law with quite expensive penalty to force web admins to obey standard to allow (theoretically) 100% standard compliant browsers to ALWAYS work (theoretically) 100% fine.
Maybe lim.100% though, as there can be unintentional bugs on both side that can cause nonconformity.
 
eternal_noob said:
You're late to the party.

Accessibility Deadlines 2025 | Legal Obligations for Websites | InboundLabs

Prepare your website for mandatory accessibility compliance by June 28, 2025, ensuring all users can access your digital services without barriers.
www.inboundlabs.de www.inboundlabs.de
Click to expand...
I shouldn't be late, as I'm saying this (like comment #15 and #17 here) for decades from the time I was using OS/2. Some sites already rejected IBM Web Browser for OS/2 (based on Mozilla). It's tooooo long standing fatal issue. At the era, as far as I know, accessibilities for disabilities was technically (almost) a dream, so OS / browser limitations were the (almost) only issue. So I should have been one of the earliest adopters, unfortunately.
 
resora said:
I am a desktop FreeBSD user, and when I register in WhatsApp Chromium, it tells me my operating system is Linux.
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I get the feeling, but… it's probably a good idea. Lately, war on bots is all the rage on the web, and suspicion is high. If ignorant / lazy devops wrote an "aggressive" detector to block what they think are not real users, any user agent that does not match one of the well known ones is seen as "suspicious activity" deserving throttling, captchas, or even blocking. Or infinite captcha loops just for the love of trolling.

Not to mention that such a statistically rare user agent as one mentioning FreeBSD would be gold for ad sellers / profilers to fingerprint you and track you all over. Personally, I randomize my user agent, using a list of most common ones, sending a different one with each tab, to fuck up fingerprinting. Accompanied with randomizing a few other HTTP headers to confuse trackers, it's the only positive use I can think of user agents.
 
eternal_noob said:
You're late to the party.

Accessibility Deadlines 2025 | Legal Obligations for Websites | InboundLabs

Prepare your website for mandatory accessibility compliance by June 28, 2025, ensuring all users can access your digital services without barriers.
www.inboundlabs.de www.inboundlabs.de
Click to expand...
Beware the difference: this is NOT concerning browser compatibility issues. This is concerning people with disabilities.
It is also NOT concerning the issue that most social websites (Reddit, Google, ...) have me banned because I use a non-consumer internet provider and/or a non-consumer geolocation.

The extraordinary German regluation authorities brought us all these nice windows on every webside where one must configure for 300+ internet-freebooters whether they are allowed or not to buy one's behavioural data. Up to now these regulation efforts have only produced detrimental effects, in driving SMB away from the internet and into the arms of the big players, making these even stronger.

And yes, I tried to talk to these political madmen (because back when I was at school, we learned that democracy would work somehow that way). Fact is, it is entirely futile - they have no idea about the technology, therefore they try to regulate it.
 
jwillia3 said:
Many web developers don't even test on Firefox.
Click to expand...
We call them lazy, incompetent fools.

We never cared about geolocation, OS, or much of anything else. Never looked for it. If you had the cash (credit card) we'd accept your money. We tested in all the major browsers and many of the lesser used ones. We never tested for which browser anyone was using caused we built to standards. If it didn't work in yours, let us know, but that means you weren't using a well known browser and your browser is the issue, not us.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
We call them lazy, incompetent fools.

We never cared about geolocation, OS, or much of anything else. Never looked for it. If you had the cash (credit card) we'd accept your money. We tested in all the major browsers and many of the lesser used ones. We never tested for which browser anyone was using caused we built to standards. If it didn't work in yours, let us know, but that means you weren't using a well known browser and your browser is the issue, not us.
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This forum is bad in Firefox. All links have negative color and must be selected to read.
Browsers as total solution are a scam. We have a collection of supported web standards. The intrusive advertisiing infrastructure has no business with it and should be optional. If a site wants to track me, it has to mention it.
 
T-Aoki said:
So what is mandatory is forcible international law with quite expensive penalty to force web admins to obey standard to allow (theoretically) 100% standard compliant browsers to ALWAYS work (theoretically) 100% fine.
Click to expand...
I have a note for my wiki working best on Firefox :p (it's legit for Chrome not plaintext copy/pasting)
arifer said:
Not to mention that such a statistically rare user agent as one mentioning FreeBSD would be gold for ad sellers / profilers to fingerprint you and track you all over.
Click to expand...
I kind-of like the idea of advertising my coolness to anyone paying attention in logs :cool: (I like to think my settings don't allow blatant cross-site tracking, but show enough to infer I block certain stuff intentionally :p)
MG said:
This forum is bad in Firefox. All links have negative color and must be selected to read.
Click to expand...
Looks fine to me? I've only browsed this forum in Firefox with text black-on-white and links red-ish:

1771105409447.png
 
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