Google Steps Up to Deal with Hotmail Issue

by Jordan Yerman | January 30, 2009 at 05:49 am

355 views | 49 Recommendations | 12 comments

Why wait for Microsoft to fix stuff? When browser and site have their differences, something's gotta give, and Google Chrome was not getting along with Microsoft Hotmail.

So, rather than wait for Redmond to give ground, Google just added a patch to Chrome which enabled it to lie to Hotmail, passing itself off as Safari.

I can understand Microsoft's position, though: Chrome users are a tiny minority of overall Hotmail subscribers, and taking down such an active service at this point in time would screw up their dev cycle something fierce.

We're dealing with that, too, these days, which is why we aren't currently supporting Highlight for IE: it's not that we don't care, it's just that we don't have the resources to prioritize the service for such a relatively small number of users (2% of total NP visitors are signed-in members who are also IE users... wow) while still staying on track for bugfixes and other site-wide rollouts.

And, yes, I actually did get in touch with the IE dev team over a year ago... and am waiting for a return call! I'm not dissing them; I know they're busy working on IE8, which is no doubt a major mission.

With the patch, Chrome tells Microsoft's site it's actually Apple's Safari browser, sidestepping a compatibility issue that had caused problems using the site.

"While the Hotmail team works on a proper fix, we're deploying a workaround that changes the user agent string that Google Chrome sends when requesting URLs that end with mail.live.com," Chrome Product Manager Mark Larson said in a blog announcement. It also fixes a problem sending mail from Yahoo Mail, he said.

The patch is in Chrome 1.0.154.46, which also fixes a severe security problem.

All you Firefox fans will recognize this functionality from the User Agent Switcher add-on, which does the same thing: puts on a Mission:Impossible mask and tells websites that it's IE, Netscape, or Opera.

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Barry Artiste

at 07:04 on January 30th, 2009

You wont find me ever using IE, though I use Hotmail cause everyone I know has my email and I am too lazy to change it. Though I use gmail for everything else. Many use Microsoft, and Microsoft sort of has a monopoly of sorts, so they may be reluctant to have other providers hijack onto their web.

As for me it is firefox and google all the way.

Barry Artiste

at 07:05 on January 30th, 2009

Jordan, did this put a Check on your story as Recommend?

Paschen

at 07:27 on January 30th, 2009

Thank you, this is interesting, very well timed post and must read for all NP members here. May help understand a few things. Thank you Jordan.

I do have one question though, what is Apple saying to all this? I just wondering if their are legal issues or if Google had to get some sort of permission. Well, My Safary still wont view Videos in post, however it does any where else.

pgaliba

at 11:01 on January 30th, 2009

Well, they use the same webpage rendering engine called Webkit, and they help each other fixing the bug in it, so i dont think they would be each others enemies.

Well, My Safary still wont view Videos in post, however it does any where else.

We are working on it.

pgaliba

at 10:57 on January 30th, 2009

Someone has to do, what needs to be done ;)

Wordsnark

at 11:36 on January 30th, 2009

Being one of the NowPublic 2%ers has discouraged me from filing stories.

As for the rest of the world, in Q4 2008, according to Net Applications, browser market share was as follows: IE=69.80%; Netscape=0.52%; Mozilla=0.08%; Firefox=20.66%; Opera= 0.72%; Safari=7.18%; and Google Chrome=0.87%

altrugon

at 11:56 on January 30th, 2009

I don't think IE is the most spread browser because is good.

A big percentage of people who works with computers are afraid of changes, they think that if they "touch" them to much they are going to break (I've been one of those users, we all started from zero).

Usually these kind of users have Windows which comes with IE so they keep stack with it.

altrugon

at 11:43 on January 30th, 2009

It's time to say NO to IE, particularly to IE6.

Technology evolves very fast and IE6 is a browser that no longer support the features of nowadays websites.

For all IE6 fans: Yes, it was the best browser years ago but its time has past like the shoulder pads in the 80's.

BenOnUserstyles

at 15:02 on January 30th, 2009

Use Firefox!

alfonso_bozzelli

at 01:07 on January 31st, 2009

alfonso_bozzelli has contributed a photo to this story.

ozl

at 10:31 on February 2nd, 2009

well, i stopped using chrome because its still not fully compatible with windows 7 beta, ill wait until they patch that too

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