Google fakes out Hotmail for Chrome support
Google has added a patch to its latest beta version and stable version of Chrome to make the browser work better with Microsoft's Hotmail site.
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.
Matt Cutts, Google's chief Web spam fighter and a high-profile company blogger, was less delicate about the Hotmail issue. "Normally you think of Web pages being faster to update than client-side software downloads. In this case though, Chrome updates near-weekly, much faster than Hotmail did. Another illustration that velocity and speed of iteration matter," he said in an online comment about the matter.
To which Omar Shahine, evidently involved with the Microsoft service, had a rebuttal: "That's a rather naive statement. You think that Hotmail is a Web page and you expect a service with hundreds of millions of users and thousands of servers to stop what it's doing, fix a bug for a browser that the majority of its customers do not use, and spin up an out-of-band release? We've already committed to addressing this issue in our next service release (already started to roll out to the site) which IMHO is an acceptable reaction."
Cutts responded, in effect, that Google knows plenty about running big Web sites, thank you very much. "Google runs Web services with many users and servers too and we launch changes weekly or faster," he said.
(Via Google Blogoscoped)
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank. 
People arguing over "free" e-mail services serves no legitimate value. All you do it give the managers and developers of said services a smug ego with alot of FUD and pointless rhetoric
"Still working" it says. I've let it continue to "work" for up to five minutes before finally closing it. Once restarted, I get an earlier version of the inbox, with read and labeled messages appearing as unread, and deleted messages back in the Inbox.It is incredibly annoying!
Gmail's sole attribute is that it's less Godawful than other web-based e-mail offerings.
Sounds like more of a problem on your end than Gmail's. Do you use Internet Explorer? Sometimes on IE, the internet connection just dies for that instance of the browser and I have to open a new IE window to surf again.
"Microsloth's ad-ladened online mail client"? And what clever moniker do you have for "Google's ad-laden online mail client" or does your browser automatically move the right-side off screen when you're reading your "gmail'?
Oh well, don't use Chrome and don't use Hotmail.
We told Microsoft of this problem a couple of months ago. Their response was "We don't support anything other than Firefox and IE on Windows, and Safari on Mac OS". In other words, they know Hotmail breaks on certain browsers when it detects a different operating system or browser, and they know this because I told them. If Microsoft wants to act like its nose has been put out of joint, then maybe it should fix its mail service's browser detection.
I believee that 3rdalbum was speaking of firefox on linux and that is why you need the "user agent switcher" to make hotmail believe that you are coming from a windows machine because microsoft only supports Firefox and IE on Windows, and Safari on Mac. Not saying that hotmail will not work on a linux box with firefox, (because i think i have used that combo..) but I bet its glitchy. And besides, how can you stand up for a bunch of A$$'s like Microsoft who have forever made their products incomapatible with others so that you have to use their crap! They want people to use IE and they cant stop people from using FF, that already snuck in nicely. Microsoft does not want to loose any more of the pie to another browser so any problems they can make, (hotmail not working with chrome for example) they are all for.
Hopefully the action being taken by the EU will be followed up by action in the US. Then these incompatible browser issues can become a thing of the past.
Honestly, it didn't matter who fixed it, but I just wanted it fixed. It's such a pain to switch back and forth to IE when I use Chrome full time.
Chrome works perfect on my machine. Tried it day one, never looked back. IE and Firefox (when I use them on another PC) seem like huge slow ugly piles.
Cody
Google touts Chrome as "simple." Well, yes. And a horse is simple compared to a Porsche.
Chrome is strictly for Google fanboys and those who don't care about their own privacy. Yech.
I stopped caring about my Hotmail account a good few years back, when the whole face of MSN was ripped apart and re-arranged into WL, and the other parts just swept under the rug (the decent parts).
Sitting at 168 unread e-mails, admittedly all things like MyOffers, site notifications, etc.
I only stick with it because MSN, WOOPS, WLM.. bring back MSN 6, the only good one.
The quicker the EU screw with their bundling, the better, maybe they will actually stop explicitly targeting browsers other than their own...
Now, who would represent Microsoft? Bill Gates or PC Guy?
but FF was gettin slow an i saw the add on youtube so i thougth i would give it i try again an ,
I LOVE IT its awseome, fast , an just light feeling ,
good for Google , slap MS lol
So, abuse of market position. If Apple were providing a buckled browser, i'd hate them for it as well, but Safari is actually up-to-date.
MS better actually be improving IE8, as in, full CSS1/2, maybe even some 3, fixed JavaScript.
Sadly, from what i saw, looks like they won't be, and instead they are just adding in yet another layer of stupidity prevention to their software.
PLEASE IMPROVE IT MICROSOFT, i might actually respect you if you do!
It is as if Internet Explorer is some background job that employees do an hour a day, get in 5 minutes, then give up and play Minesweeper or something...
********.
They don't get it. They are not going to learn. They want to drag us all back to the 1990's where they could screw Netscape. And standards ? What are they ?
For God's sake, just don't use their stuff.
- by jezzali January 30, 2009 8:19 AM PST
- Where the stars are on my previous post is an expletive... you get the picture.
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