Old Browsers and security - Was Re: [thelist] Site review please

Stephen Rider evolt_org at striderweb.com
Tue Jan 27 15:20:04 CST 2004


A program like this existed for a while -- it was called (IIRC) the 
"Browser Upgrade Initiative" and was executed by the Web Standards 
Project <http://www.webstandards.org/>.

Basically they encouraged webmasters to put in a hidden bit of text on 
their sites (that _would only_ be visible in non-css compliant 
browsers) that said something to the effect of "Your browser is missing 
a lot of formatting because it doesn't understand web standards.  Hit 
this handy link <link to webstandards.org> for information on how to 
upgrade to a modern browser."

Some die-hards set up their sites to do a straight redirect so that 
people using NN4 had no choice in the matter, and of course spammers 
found a way to abuse it :p .

All in all though it was considered pretty successful, and was ended 
sometime in 2003.

Steve


On Tuesday, January 27, 2004, at 12:03  PM, Chris Hayes wrote:

> AFAIK it's not just hat ppl  _should_  be using updated browsers, they
> really _must_, with the significant advances in security, encryption 
> and
> cert handling wouldn't it be a public service to detect their browsers 
> and
> tell 'em where to get updated?  Just plain refuse to display them the 
> site?



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