IE 8

found in user agent string

[Purple Martin]

I found this user agent string:

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 9.0)

Did I miss two major releases?

[TGecho]

Probably some joker playing with his browser.

[TGecho]

Hmm... did a google search and found these links. One of them's in dutch, but they seem to be confused about it.

Strange.

[eprogrammeur.nl...]

[securityoffice.net...]

[davis]

could it be the MSN 8 browser? weird.

[Purple Martin]

Funnily enough some of the posts on the Dutch site make sense if you read them phonetically!

This post by XorTW is wondering if it's Microsoft doing some beta testing:

vraag me af wie die beta van microsoft heeft gejat/(gevonden)

This post by james gives more information:

dat klopt ja
netscape 5 is er nooit geweest
maar IE7 bestaat nog niet eens,
en IE6 is de laatste IE voor de huidige windowsversies
en IE7 komt in Longhorn (neem ik aan)
IE8 dan in Blackcomb (zie boven)

I think it says IE7 comes with Longhorn, and IE8 comes with Blackcomb.

Between them I think XorTW and james have given us the answer.

[Alfasys]

Hi Purple Martin,

you're right about that. My main language is dutch and the posts say :

1. I'm wondering who ripped off/has stolen an unknown beta from Microsoft.

2. that's right
Netscape 5 was never released
But IE7 doesn't even exist,
and IE6 is the latest IE for the most recent Windows versions
And IE7 comes in Longhorn (I presume)
IE8 will come in Blackcomb (see above)

[hartlandcat]

Almost certainly user agent string spoofing. If you find the right file, you can change your user agent string, to pretend that your browser is another browser. People that do this are normally K-Meleon users as K-Meleon tends to encourage user agent spoofing by provinding a graphical interface for changing it in the preferences section.

I had a "Netscape 7.5" visitor a while back. Obviously, that was user agent spoofing.

[MonkeeSage]

IE's UA can be changed by the reg string:
\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \Software \Microsoft \Windows \CurrentVersion \Internet Settings \User Agent\

Mozilla and Firebird have UIs that allow for setting of the UA string in it's various parts (Mozilla about:config, general.useragent.*; FireBird same thing, or the UA Switcher extension). K-Meleon, being built on Mozilla Gecko technology (based on MFCEmbed), simply changes these userprefs when it changes the UA.

Opera has a listbox for switching like K-Meleon does, and has an extra place for selecting a pre-defined fake UA in it's Quick preferences menu (F12).

Also, I've used (and developed unofficial versions of) K-Meleon for about the past 8 months now, I know the devs (not like we are best friends or anything but we've had various email discussions about development of K-M), and I frequent the user forums; and I've never seen anyone suggesting to spoof their UA. We are constantly telling people the opposite--don't spoof their UA or Java won't work and pages will serve them incorrect content, &c. We always point out that it should only be changed if a site won't display correctly otherwise or if a newer UA is available (e.g., Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.5b) Gecko/20030722 K-Meleon/0.7.1).

Jordan

[chris_f]

If you see IE7 in your logs it is probably an IE ALPHA tester like me or it is a longhorn ALPHA tester ... hey ... me again :)

IE8 Doesn't exist though. Probably spooking of the UA. Could be a MSN8 bug though (or early edition still in use).

ATOB
c

[edit_g]

Maybe it was Billy Gates. :)

[hartlandcat]

MonkeySage, you misunderstand me.
I wasn't saying that the K-Meleon group encourages people to spoof their UA, I was saying that K-Meleon makes it much easier for people to completely invent their own UA than other browsers do, meaning that bizare UAs are often from K-Meleon users.

[moonbiter]

Mozilla about:config, general.useragent.*;

See Multizilla [multizilla.mozdev.org] and the [http://extensionroom.mozdev.org/more-info.php/uabar]User Agent Toolbar[/url] for other examples.

In short, it's trivial to spoof a UA string nowadays.