[PLUG-TALK] Resolved: Rumor Control Websites

John Jason Jordan johnxj at comcast.net
Wed Aug 26 20:16:09 UTC 2009


On Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:30:42 -0700
Larry Williams <larryw at holbrookmasons.org> dijo:

> On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 09:00, drew wymore<drew.wymore at gmail.com> wrote:
> > You can change the user.Agent mask in Firefox but I've had varied success
> > with it actually working.
> 
> The problem isn't with the user agent string, it's that the browser
> can't render the page properly.  Changing the string doesn't make the
> browser capable of rendering an IE-specific (for example) page.

Thanks for all the replies and suggestions.

I am not overly concerned about privacy, although it is annoying when a
web site sniffs things out. Like it's any of their business where I
live, what OS or browser I visit their site with, or what ISP I use.

Mainly I am annoyed when Google helpfully tells me all about stores in
Portland that sells something I am searching on, but refuses to tell me
any places in the rest of the world. I finally blocked Google from
adding cookies and that helped, but I still find that it is difficult
to get many sites to treat me as a generic internet user of
indeterminate location. 

A few months ago I was looking for a couple sticks of RAM to upgrade my
laptop. All I could get was Portland area stores. Now, I already know
that the best stores for this in Portland are Fry's and ENU, and I had
already checked their prices. What I wanted was mail order places in
the rest of the world, but I couldn't get Google to list any of them.
I'm sure that web sites and Google think they are being helpful, but
it's annoying to have to use subterfuges to get what you want.

I do have Opera installed, and I used to use it as my main browser
years ago on Windows. And it does offer the ability to identify itself
as Internet Explorer, but that feature never worked very well. E.g., I
could go to WebCT at PSU and the site would immediately pop up a
warning that PSU did not support Opera, in spite of having Opera
identify itself as IE. I don't know how PSU's web site sniffed it out,
but it did.

I added the User Agent add-on for Firefox and I'll play with it some.
But for the geography issue I guess what I really need is a proxy. Now,
if I just knew what a proxy is I would go get one. Guess I'll have to
Google on it to educate myself. Except that Google will helpfully point
me to stores in Portland where surely I can buy one. Bah. :(



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