Where does Netscape 5.x fit in?

[dakboy]

In reviewing our site logs/stats (using WebTrends), I've got hits coming from Netscape 5.x UAs. Are these really users of the short-lived Netscape 5 release, or is there another browser (maybe a Mozilla release?) I can correlate this to? So far Google searches aren't coming up with much help.

[Z_God]

The program you use to check what browsers people are using probably has got bugs in it.
Since modern browsers these days all report as Mozilla/5.0, the program thinks they're Netscape 5.x. An upgraded version of WebTrends would probably solve the problem.

[dakboy]

The program you use to check what browsers people are using probably has got bugs in it.
Since modern browsers these days all report as Mozilla/5.0, the program thinks they're Netscape 5.x. An upgraded version of WebTrends would probably solve the problem.

Upgrading WebTrends isn't an option. It does recognize Netscape 6, so it's picking up at least some UAs in that family.

[Stefan]

Upgrading WebTrends isn't an option. It does recognize Netscape 6, so it's picking up at least some UAs in that family.

Well, at least you know that NS 5 and NS 6 = Geckobrowsers

[dtobias]

The problem here is browser authors doing their best to obfuscate the user agent identifier strings, causing statistic compilers to keep scrambling to keep up with them, and sometimes get it wrong. Mozilla is a relatively mild offender here compared to others that actively impersonate other browsers (e.g., Opera by default includes "MSIE" in its UA string), but it does have "Mozilla/5.0" in it, which can get misinterpreted as Netscape 5.0 by analyzers that are used to earlier Netscapes (NS 4.x had "Mozilla/4" for instance). For your information, there never was any released product named Netscape 5.0.

Most (but not quite all) browsers with "Mozilla/5.0" in their UA string are Gecko-based, but the more certain way to detect a Gecko-based browser is to look for the "Gecko" token.

[dakboy]

Most (but not quite all) browsers with "Mozilla/5.0" in their UA string are Gecko-based, but the more certain way to detect a Gecko-based browser is to look for the "Gecko" token.

I'll have to check WebTrends and see if I can tweak my reports to check the UA string for "Gecko".

[MozSaysAloha]

Most (but not quite all) browsers with "Mozilla/5.0" in their UA string are Gecko-based, but the more certain way to detect a Gecko-based browser is to look for the "Gecko" token.

Not all strings that proclaim "Mozilla/5.0" are Gecko. Look at these strings:

Code: Select all

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/48 (like Gecko) Safari/48 

Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/3.1; Linux)

Since both Konqueror and Safari claim to be Mozilla/5.0. Are they Gecko? No they aren't. Another point: since Safari has both "Gecko" and "Mozilla/5.0" in it's string, what kind of content would it get?

[nilson]

You could look here: http://home.earthlink.net/~nilsoncain/misc.htm
Its the story titled "Mozilla History".

That decribes part of it.
Most browsers based on gecko identify as Mozilla/5.0 because they are equivelent of a version 5 browser. Although not many browsers are 5.0, they have the equivelent capabilities of one. A version 4 browser would be IE 4, NN 4, ...

[xfranky]

I guess both bravenet stats and Shinystat (the ones I use...) got the "Gecko" token recognition, for now they identify every Gecko-based browser (except NS) as Mozilla....