radarlove wrote:
You know how Youtube makes a fuss about old browsers, and tells you
"your browser is outdated". Then you have to click on "NO THANKS" to
proceed. Well, it made a DOUBLE fuss over K-Meleon 1.5.4, saying the
browser is NOT SUPPORTED. But I still could use it, after dealing
with all their nag screens.
I've used K-Meleon 1.5.4 for years in
Win98, Win2K and XP. Aside from too many script errors on newer
websites, it's still a great browser. But I fixed all those YOUTUBE
nag screens in K-Meleon. Here's how. K-Meleon has an option, under:
EDIT PREFERENCES PRIVACY & SECURITY PARANOIA.
In there it says "Determine how K-Meleon should identify itself". In
there, I used "CUSTOM", and typed in Firefox 39.0. I closed that box.
When I opened YOUTUBE.com, NO MORE NAG SCREENS ~~~ I could not
believe it was that simple!
That will only work if the web site uses the ancient method of
interrogating the User Agent header your web browser gives to the
server. The UA string identifies to the server what client is
connecting to it. User-Agent is an HTTP header specified by the client:
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec14.html, section 14.43
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_a...identification
The UApick extension for Firefox has been around for a long time (so you
have to delve into their advanced config editor which is just a text
editor for the config settings to change the UA string that way).
UApick made it easy to select a different UA string; however, it only
had a limited number of choices so you had to add more strings if you
wanted to pick something other than from UApick's default list. I don't
know if there is an "UA select" extension for K-Meleon (never used that
web browser) so you don't have to wade through all the menus AND specify
a valid UA string replacement. "Firefox 39.0" is not a valid UA string
so if that is what you told K-Meleon to send then the site hasn't a clue
what client you are using and will have to pick LCD (least common
denominator) code branch regarding functions supported by the web page.
You can find a list of valid UA strings at:
http://useragentstring.com/pages/useragentstring.php
Changing the UA string was the old way of getting around a site whose
client range check failed to included, for example, the latest version
of a web browser. A site has not yet updated their table of what web
browsers and their versions that they support. Although you have a
later version, their table does not yet go that high. So you have to
lie (user agent spoofing) that you have an older version. Same goes for
when their table does not include your old version web browser. You're
outside their range. Their table of "good" web browsers likely does not
include every web browser that has ever existed.
Newer methods have the server try to use several functions in the client
to determine which web browser connected to it. Instead of writing code
branches for specific web browser, they test the web browser for
functionality and use different code branches for lesser capable web
browsers. So it doesn't matter what UA string you send them. They will
determine compatibility and functionality by actually testing your web
browser rather than rely on who the client claims they are which can be
a lie (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_a...gent_spoofing).
Testing the web browser eliminates UA spoofing so the site still knows
whether it can deliver its content to you or have to employ alternate
code to support what your web browser lacks. I suspect if Javascript is
disabled then they cannot preform their functionality checks but then
they may refuse to deliver content if you have Javascript disabled.
Even Microsoft issued a warning quite awhile ago that the UA string
should not be used to identify the client connecting to a server.
Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, and many web browsers have
long had the ability to modify the UA string they send to the server.
The result is that web site still relying on the old UA string scheme
will select the wrong code branch to use to interact with the client and
what web page content to deliver.
By the way, are you using a Flash plug-in in K-Meleon to view the videos
at YouTube? If so, you don't need Flash there. Google is one who has
embraced using HTML5/Javascript to provide viewing of videos so you
don't need Flash. Both Flash and Silverlight are in their death throes.
I do not have Flash installed. When I visit YouTube, they test
functionality of my web browser, see Flash is not available, so they use
their HTML5 viewer to show my their videos. Lots of sites have
converted to HTML5 viewers (and discarded Adobe's Flash) but there are
still lingerers. So far, of the lingerers I've found, I can still the
content that I want to see or I can find it elsewhere.