[thelist] IE = Mozilla in log?

[Peter-Paul Koch]

>Can anyone explain why Internet Explorer is identified in my server log as:
>Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Mac_PowerPC) ?

Mozilla is the name of the Netscape code engine and they always used
'Mozilla' as browser name for their USER_AGENT strings, never 'Netscape'.
When Netscape 1 first appeared, it was the only browser supporting cookies
(plus some minor oddities like <CENTER>). Therefore browser detects were
written that sent people to a cookie site or a cookieless site according to
their browsers.

When Explorer, Opera, Hotjava and the rest entered the scene, they
supported cookies too. To get on the right side of the browser detects,
they had to use the string 'Mozilla' too. To indicate that they were not
Netscape browsers, they also added '(compatible)' and their own name
('MSIE', 'Opera') to the string. Netscape kept its purity and does not use
any recognizable browser nae in the string.

Nowadays no one detects Mozilla vs. non-Mozilla, but the practice has
remained. Microsoft couldn't resist confusing the issue by making IE5
Mozilla/4 (which is, technically speaking, nonsense, IE5 being equivalent
to Mozilla/5). IE3 mostly uses Mozilla/2, which is technically speaking
correct.

X11 means X-windows. Usually the exact Unix type is also given. So

Mozilla/4.7 [lang] (X11; I; SunOS x.x sun4u)

is Netscape 4.7 on SunOS.

ppk
(avid browser string collector)