MSN trying to force us to use IE?

[k4kyv]

I use Mozilla Firefox.  Much prefer it over Internet Explorer.  I have noticed lately that some of the news items off MSN are contradictive or simply make no sense.

I finally figured out what was going on.  In the UK version, they have started embedding hyperlinks into the text of their news items.  These come through ok with IE, but using Mozilla or other non-IE browsers, the highlighted words are simply omitted from the text.  That's why some of the sentences make no sense, and occasionally the omitted word makes the sentence read just the opposite of what the writer intended.  I haven't noticed it in the US version yet.

I haven't tried twiddling the settings of Firefox to see if it can be made to pick these up.

[John Holotko]

I use Mozilla Firefox.  Much prefer it over Internet Explorer.  I have noticed lately that some of the news items off MSN are contradictive or simply make no sense.

I finally figured out what was going on.  In the UK version, they have started embedding hyperlinks into the text of their news items.  These come through ok with IE, but using Mozilla or other non-IE browsers, the highlighted words are simply omitted from the text.  That's why some of the sentences make no sense, and occasionally the omitted word makes the sentence read just the opposite of what the writer intended.  I haven't noticed it in the US version yet.

I haven't tried twiddling the settings of Firefox to see if it can be made to pick these up.

Microsoft largely sucks. When people realize their proprietary ideologies are primarily garbage they often attempt to force users into submission by creating subtle but annoying incompatability conundrums. To heck with them. Stick with Firefox.

[Jim, W5JO]

Don, I am using Firefox and went to MSN and did not experience the trouble you mention.  Maybe it is the Adblock feature.

[W2INR]

Don and Gang

I have found that IE is a pain in the butt.

When I design something for the site I check it with three browsers. IE, Netscape,and Firefox.

No matter what I design, whether it is a simple line of HTML or Flash , Firefox, and Netscape work under normal programming. I find I have to add lines of code to get IE to perform the same way the other two do.

I have been on Firefox about 7 months and I kick myself in the butt for not switching sooner. I strongly recommend using anything but IE as MS has added extensions and other crap to thier programs so MS software works best with MS stuff only. I think this was part of MS's attempt to corner the market in the early years. People have caught on and thier hold is slipping away - -  finally.

According to the stats on this site over 30% of the users are using Firefox now. This has come up over the last year. IE is still the majority but it is slowly losing its hold.

I have converted over to Thunderbird for my email and Firefox as my browser and since doing so and setting these two programs up I have had a dramatic decrease in spam and viruses and the such from getting on my machine. The conversion process is easy and you can retain all of your current data .

In simple terms they are superior products in my opinion.

These words are coming from someone who has owned MS stock since 84.

[k4kyv]

Let me be a little more specific.  I'd be interested in what others have experienced.

When I attempt to read news articles (thus far specifically observed only from Reuters) on the msn.co.uk site, certain words are omitted from the text. If I view the same page using IE, I get the complete text. The missing words are the ones displayed as hyperlinks embedded in the text when using IE, but sometimes the same word, when used subsequently in the article, continues to be omitted even though it is not displayed subsequently as a hyperlink in IE.

In Firefox, the text is complete when viewed from the Page Source window.

I have not observed this problem with the US site, msn.com.

Then, after carefully observing the web page load up I discovered that when first bringing up the site with Firefox, the complete text appears for about two seconds, then the page reloads with the words missing.

Sometimes the missing words completely change the meaning of the sentence, or render it with no sense at all.  I was first made aware of this when I posted a link to a news item on another forum, and one person responded that the site was missing words.  I posted the problem on the Firefox tech support forum, and the only response I have got so far is one other person said they noticed the same thing.

I would be interested if anyone using Firefox, Netscape, Safari or other non-IE browsers, would test your browsers with the following web page, and let me know if you get this result when you click on one of the In the News items:

http://www.msn.co.uk/

[John Holotko]

Let me be a little more specific.  I'd be interested in what others have experienced.

When I attempt to read news articles (thus far specifically observed only from Reuters) on the msn.co.uk site, certain words are omitted from the text. If I view the same page using IE, I get the complete text. The missing words are the ones displayed as hyperlinks embedded in the text when using IE, but sometimes the same word, when used subsequently in the article, continues to be omitted even though it is not displayed subsequently as a hyperlink in IE.

In Firefox, the text is complete when viewed from the Page Source window.

I have not observed this problem with the US site, msn.com.

Then, after carefully observing the web page load up I discovered that when first bringing up the site with Firefox, the complete text appears for about two seconds, then the page reloads with the words missing.

Sometimes the missing words completely change the meaning of the sentence, or render it with no sense at all.  I was first made aware of this when I posted a link to a news item on another forum, and one person responded that the site was missing words.  I posted the problem on the Firefox tech support forum, and the only response I have got so far is one other person said they noticed the same thing.

I would be interested if anyone using Firefox, Netscape, Safari or other non-IE browsers, would test your browsers with the following web page, and let me know if you get this result when you click on one of the In the News items:

http://www.msn.co.uk/

I tried it running Firefox on Linux and I noticed the same problem that you are describing.Then I  checked out the same news item using the Konqueror browser (A Linux/KDE browser) and it was fine (no missing words) albeit the text did come all the way up to the edge on a few sentences. I haven't tested it with Opera yet.I am going to try that next.

[John Holotko]

Here's another small problem I noticed with IE. I was on a windows box the other day running IE and I attempted to access a  web server I am running on a non-standard port (a port other than port 80). So, I entered the site name and port number in the standard way:

http://www.somewebsite.com:10080

and IE told me the page was not available. It just didn't seem to understand how to access a  website on a nonstandard port. Most normal borswrs have no problem doing this but IE couldn't do it. So I downloaded Firefox for Windows, installed it on the machine entered http://www.somewebsite.com:10080 and viola' the page came up no problem. I cannot believe that IE is incapable of accessing servers on nonstandard ports.

[W1RKW]

I use the Mozilla Suite which has the browser, email client, html editor and a couple of other things all linked together as one program. It works pretty darn good on my 800MHz machine.  IE has a ton of overhead and is slow in comparison to Mozilla. On a very rare occasion I will run into a situation where I'll need to bring up IE because Mozilla chokes on the code created by a Microsoft product but that's a rear occasion.  I too am extremely pleased with the Mozilla performance.

[k4kyv]

I was able to fix the problem with reading news items on the MSN.CO.UK site with Mozilla Firefox, by disabling Javascript.  Now the full text appears.

So far, I have seen no other changes while surfing the net.

Does anyone know what undesirable side-effects, if any,  I should be on the lookout for while running the browser without Javascript?

PS: I guess I just found one side-effect of running with Javascript disabled.  I clicked on the Petrotheism link and the animation did not load.  Re-enabled it, and it came up normally.

[John Holotko]

I was able to fix the problem with reading news items on the MSN.CO.UK site with Mozilla Firefox, by disabling Javascript.  Now the full text appears.
So far, I have seen no other changes while surfing the net.
Does anyone know what undesirable side-effects, if any,  I should be on the lookout for while running the browser without Javascript?
PS: I guess I just found one side-effect of running with Javascript disabled.  I clicked on the Petrotheism link and the animation did not load.  Re-enabled it, and it came up normally.

Well, asyou alreadydiscovered some animations won't work.  Some  sites use javascript for their shopping carts and online order processing and may not work if disabled. Som,e sites have pictureviewers and other enhancements that maynot work if/when JS is turned off. However, many sites are designed to work with/without javascript

I generally keep Java  and javascript turned off and turn it in as needed. I consider javcascript somewhat of a security risk and generally prefer to keep it turned off for general browsing and web surfing.

[Ian VK3KRI]

I cannot believe that IE is incapable of accessing servers on nonstandard ports.

I run webservers on non-standard ports at work and the IE that we're forced to use on desktops works without a problem. I can't try it at home as I don't have any MS machines.
                                                                             Ian VK3KRI

[John Holotko]

I cannot believe that IE is incapable of accessing servers on nonstandard ports.

I run webservers on non-standard ports at work and the IE that we're forced to use on desktops works without a problem. I can't try it at home as I don't have any MS machines.
                                                                             Ian VK3KRI

Hmmmm... very interesting. I wonder why it didn't  work for me. When you access these servers on nonstandard ports how do you tell the IE where (what port) to connect to ? Do you do it in the standard fashion of the site name followed by a colon followed by the port number ? Or, do you specifiy the port elsewhere ? I tried using the colon followed by the port number and it wouldn't work.  Guess I should examine the query/request string the browser is sending to the server.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

The Opera web browser is now free.

http://www.opera.com/

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

New version of Firefox out too, 1.0.7

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/