Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Sends Broken Web Pages to GNOME Web While GNOME is Adding Microsoft Integration



Guest post by Ryan, reprinted with permission from the original

M

icrosoft still sends broken Web pages to GNOME Web, while GNOME is adding Office 365/OneDrive integration.



A couple years ago, when I tried to sign into Microsoft Outlook mail with GNOME Web, I noticed that it gets a fallback page meant for obsolete Web browsers. GNOME Web uses (currently) the default version of WebKit that Safari 15 does.



So there’s no good reason for Microsoft to send it broken Web pages meant for Internet Explorer and other obsolete Web browsers.



I noticed at the time that if I used user agent hacks on every site that said I was running Safari on Mac OS that it loaded the full site.



We never did figure out the right user agents to feed each Microsoft domain that loads along the way to reliably get the correct version of Outlook, and the Basic site works. It’s just very ugly.



Michael Catanzaro told me that using “Safari on Mac OS” in general for the user agent generally does more harm than good. Most sites start trying to send you Mac files.



But it’s very clearly Microsoft seeing the Epiphany and Linux user agent somewhere along the way that’s tipping them off that they can screw up the site in this browser.



It’s not the first time Microsoft has sent obsolete or malformed Web pages to a browser with a modern and fully capable rendering engine.



It’s a pattern of bad behavior that at Microsoft, they attack small browsers where few will complain and most will go download or open something else.



Mozilla Suite and Firefox had to deal with this all the time in the early 2000s, and Microsoft detected Opera’s user agent it sent a deliberately corrupt style sheet on MSN, which was a major Web portal back then.



(Microsoft has since fired the editors and has stupid software loading random clickbait. Then they shovel that into their Windows 11 “Weather” widget.)



The Opera situation made it into the news at the time when Opera released a special “Opera Bork Edition” that “translated” everything on MSN into the language of the Swedish Chef, from The Muppet Show.



Opera releases “Bork” Edition (2003)



A technical explanation of the Opera incident.



At the time, Microsoft had a version of the page that worked in Opera, but gave it a corrupt version instead. The only change you needed to perform was to tell Microsoft you were visiting MSN in Internet Explorer 6.



In fact, to prove that Microsoft was sniffing for “Opera” in the user agent and returning a broken page, they changed it to “Oprah” and requested the page, and got the page for IE6, which displayed fine.



Previously, in 2001, Microsoft blocked Opera from accessing anything on MSN at all, and recommended Internet Explorer. Opera filed an antitrust complaint with government regulators, and Microsoft removed the block.



Later, Microsoft came back and performed subtle sabotage to make the page look broken in Opera as revenge for getting Microsoft in trouble with regulators.



I complained to Microsoft in 2021 about the Outlook Mail issue with GNOME Web and got no response and they locked my post on Microsoft Answers.



Amazingly, with all of this going on, proving that Microsoft hasn’t changed at all and attacks GNOME’s official Web browser, GNOME developers are adding support for Onedrive (Microsoft’s “cloud” storage) into GNOME Files.



As I was reading through GNOME’s gitlab instance, I found some chatter that led me to a Microsoft page where they will be shutting down “Basic” authentication and forcing OAuth2 for Outlook Mail as of October 1st, which means your only choices are moving to some client that supports that, or using their Webmail interface.



Apparently, the plan is to support OAuth2 for Microsoft accounts throughout GNOME and to add Onedrive support into GNOME Files.



That probably means that Geary and Evolution will work, but I don’t want to use those. It also seems like a lot of effort to support Microsoft when they deliberately do to GNOME Web what they did to Opera in 2003 on their Outlook Mail site.



Oddly enough, opening Microsoft Office (yuck) seems to function as intended in GNOME Web, but even going to Outlook through that, you get the fallback site.



“Microsoft Loves Linux”

Recent Techrights' Posts

When the Microsoft Aggressors Rely on Several Law Firms ('Attack Dogs', 'Guns for Hire'), Not Just One, Lawyering Up Against Techrights (Acting on Behalf of Americans Against UK Publishers)
From serving customers at some restaurant he has moved on to bullying people with demand letters
Polygamy, from Catholic Synod on Synodality to Social Control Media & Debian CyberPolygamy
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Only a Third of or 1 in 3 Web-Connected Devices is a Desktop or Laptop, According to statCounter
we can expect Android to widen its lead
 
statCounter Estimates Only 1 in 300 Iranians Would Use Microsoft for Search
Iranians don't quite trust Microsoft
Gemini Links 24/06/2025: ftpd on FreeBSD and Online Small Web Magazine
Links for the day
Google News Does Great Harm by Promoting Slopfarms as Legitimate News Sites
Slopfarms are sites which are 100% LLM slop
Links 24/06/2025: Trouble at "Open" "AI" and ‘Siarhei is Free’
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/06/2025: Stimulants and Subscription Costs for DRM
Links for the day
Links 24/06/2025: OpenAI [sic] May Soon Die (Too Much Debt) and Social Control Media Accused of Being Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda Amplifier
Links for the day
Nirbheek Chauhan in Planet GNOME Explains Why Wayland Pushers Are Losing
"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
The Days Are Getting Shorter, the First Half of 2025 is Almost Over
We're gratified to see significant increase in traffic and also positive feedback on the work we do
Turning GNU/Linux Into a Political Football
X (not the site) is Free software
X Server Still Works for Many People
A lot of people will grow suspicious of Wayland boosters/pushers if they persist and insist on using these tactics
Exactly a Week Ago "BetaNews Staff" Said "Betanews Is Growing Alongside You". Since Then Every Article (All by "Camila Nogueira") Has Been LLM Slop.
BetaNews is basically a slopfarm
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 23, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 23, 2025
The "Tarzan Effect" in Compilers and Software
What happens when you forcibly make things 'work', either by hacks or by disregarding warnings (like those that compilers tend to issue)?
Gemini Links 23/06/2025: Mass Tourism, Hair Love, and Google Gemini as a Googlebomb
Links for the day
Law Firm Burgess Mee Does Not Fully Deny Participating in Abusive Litigation for Serial Strangler From Microsoft
I am not unfamiliar with these tactics
The Modus Operandi of Wayland Pushers: Make It Political
do what I say or you're a nazi...
Links 23/06/2025: RFE/RL Contributor Vladyslav Yesypenko Released, Recording Industry Cutbacks
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Solicitors (M): Over 99.9% of Our E-mail is Self-Marketing, We Send You 3.5MB E-mails for Less Than 1KB of Text
Why would tech people entrust legal matters to such people?
Peter Moon's (Computerworld) Interview With Richard Stallman
Stallman: If you want freedom don't follow Linus Torvalds
At What Point Does Outsourcing Constitute Malpractice?
Brett Wilson LLP's new staff page is misleading
United Arab Emirates (UAE) Sailing to GNU/Linux, According to statCounter
countries in that region will quickly learn the price of neglecting digital sovereignty
From Do Your Own Research to Do Your Own Search
The Web is full of garbage; search engines amplify this garbage
More People Moving to Geminispace?
at age 6+ Gemini Protocol seems to have gained some maturity and it seems like more people use it
Permutation in LLMs Does, Inevitably, Change Meanings and Therefore LLMs Cannot Properly Rephrase or Summarise Texts
LLMs lack actual grasp or comprehension of what they spew out
Links 23/06/2025: Many Security Breaches, Population Declines
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/06/2025: "America at the Crossroads" and OpenWRT Surgery
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 22, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 22, 2025
Pure Dove
Different means different, and sometimes those who "deviate" from "the norm" have a point
Censorship is a Sign of Weakness Which Invites More Censorship Attempts
revolutionaries don't succumb to pressure from bullies
Why It's Unlikely That LLM Slop Will Dominate the Web in the Long Run
Slopfarms will eventually perish (they have no actual value) and "survivors" on the Web will be sites that never depended on search engines and social control media
GNU/Linux in Argentina Now Measured Near 5%
Like in central Europe, they must be seeing an increasingly hostile US
BetaNews is Fake News, Composed by LLM Slop
nothing in BetaNews is written by humans anymore
Links 22/06/2025: Giving Up on Smartphones and 'Jaws' at 50
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/06/2025: Furniture Construction and Bubble for Comments
Links for the day
Links 22/06/2025: Windows TCO Tales and YouTube Getting More Hostile to Users
Links for the day
The FSF Board and FSF Beard
So the FSF's Board has grown
Law Firms Facing the Consequences for Patently Abusive Litigation on Behalf of Microsoft Employees Who Got Arrested for Strangulation and Had Done Even Worse Things
Having spent 1.5 years bullying me with patronising letters on behalf of Microsofters, last week they got served a massive bill and, in effect, lost the Hearing
New Report From the EPO's Staff Representatives in The Hague (LSCTH) Reveals Many Unsolved Issues
Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) wrote to staff just before the weekend
LLMs Breaking Everything
Computing and the Net became a playground for scammers and "bros", like people who "invented" fake currencies and also try to tell us that LLMs spewing out things will have some real value
Links 22/06/2025: More Slop Lawsuits (Copyrights) and "America’s Oligarch Problem"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/06/2025: Gigantic Toolchest and Annoying Bots
Links for the day