RE: user agent label format

At 10:09 AM 9/13/99 -0700, Dmitry Beransky wrote:
>It seems that despite the fact that most agents (at least the ones I pulled 
>off my server logs) follow the format specified in the HTTP spec, it's 
>still impossible to determine with 100% accuracy the agent's make, model, 
>os platform, etc., since most of this info is stored in an unstructured 
>comment field.  Is there any work done on trying to further standardize the 
>agent data?

Watch the CC/PP activity for developments in this area.  However, they may
be bringing forward recommendations on vendor-blind means for disclosing
relevant capabilities in lieu of make and model.

Are you aware that browser sniffing works against people who use uncommon
user agents, and that this tends to unnecessarily reduce the services
accessible to people with disabilities?

Al

>
>Thanks
>Dmitry Beransky
>
>At 11:25 PM 9/10/99 , Larry Masinter wrote:
>
>>RFC 2616 Section 14.43 defines the "User-Agent" field as a sequence of
>>product tokens, defined in 3.8 as token/product-version, and gives
>>an example of CERN-LineMode/2.15 libwww/2.17b3.
>>>
>>>Just curious... is there an official standard or at least a recommendation
>>>for the format of HTTP's User-Agent header?
>>
>

Received on Monday, 13 September 1999 15:20:41 UTC