The good news is, you can fool ??™em all!
The User Agent Switcher Extension for SeaMonkey and Firefox, (available
for free from http://chrispederick.com/work/useragentswitcher/), allows
Mozilla browsers to masquerade as any other browser, including Internet
Explorer, good ol??™ Netscape 4, and even Opera. When you stumble upon an
IE-only web site, just go to Tools ??? User Agent Switcher and pick a
browser, as shown in Figure 7-36.
Web and Email | 435
Networking and
Internet
Click Options to edit the browser list; you can even type in a custom user
agent string and spoof a different version of Windows. What fun!
Of course, dressing up your browser as Internet Explorer doesn??™t necessarily
mean the site will work like it??™s supposed to. Often, these sites require
Internet Explorer because they employ proprietary IE features, such as the
ActiveX add-ons that can open the door to spyware (see ???Lock Down Internet
Explorer,??? earlier in this chapter). In these cases, you must either view
the page in IE or abandon the site. If you take the former course of action,
you??™ll appreciate the IE View extension for Firefox and SeaMonkey (freely
available from http://ieview.mozdev.org/). When you encounter a site that
won??™t work properly in Firefox, just right-click an empty area of the page
and select View This Page in IE or right-click any link on the page and select
Open Link Target in IE.
When you find a site that doesn??™t work in Firefox or SeaMonkey, send the
webmaster a note and request the site be made standards-compliant.
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