[Esot-eric]

I switched several relatives from Windows XP to Linux last year and so far it's all been going great (in fact, far fewer requests for support since getting them off Windows).

But my step-mother has just informed me that this month and last she has been unable to pay her O2 bill online due to O2 bone-headedly implementing some sort of user-agent sniffing.

I've been trying to think of a reason for any company, in 2016, to do something so ridiculously stupid but have been unable to come up with one. Chrome is Chrome, and Firefox is Firefox no matter what OS they're running on, so i just don't get it.

Anyone else have any ideas on why O2 would pull a stunt like this?

[Richard_T]

you could try windows 10 that should work, or get a mac

[Thine Wonk]

Linux isn't user friendly as far as ordinary users go. It's fine for IT people and for servers, but most Linux desktops are awful, even now. A classic example here http://youtu.be/NfjeZJUvQI0

I think TBH you'd have been better off putting your relatives on Windows 10.

According to the figures for April 2016 for the desktop and laptop market Linux has a 1.55% install base, with the Linux kernel responsible for 1.40% of web requests according to the user agent, so you say it's not 2006, but it kind of really is isn't it.

[binary]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Esot-eric

... Anyone else have any ideas on why O2 would pull a stunt like this?

No idea, sorry. I guess you could ask over on the O2's own Community Forums.

Out of interest, which flavour of Linux have you switched them over to? (Guessing Ubuntu but might be wrong.) Are there any particular difficulties that you've encountered?

[mici01]

So if it really is only the user agent. Get them a user Agent Switcher so O2 thinks there using Windows or MacOS.

[huwdw]

Does Chrome support extensions on Linux? There are some that can fake the user agent.

[Esot-eric]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thine Wonk

I think TBH you'd have been better off putting your relatives on Windows 10.

No free upgrade from XP to Windows 10. I did have access to a Win7 license so i initially installed it on my step-mother's laptop and then did the upgrade to 10. The experience was a disaster for her. Every now and then it would boot up to a blank screen and you couldn't even do a forced poweroff by holding the power button. The power supply and battery had to be pulled to reboot. Other times the Start menu/taskbar would stop responding and the machine would have to be forcibly rebooted.

Switched her over to Linux and this is the first problem since. It's been a far superior platform, especially for those that mainly use their computers for web browsing, email, etc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by binary

Out of interest, which flavour of Linux have you switched them over to? (Guessing Ubuntu but might be wrong.) Are there any particular difficulties that you've encountered?

I started them out on Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition, but am now transitioning them over to Ubuntu MATE 16.04.

This is the first real difficulty any of the people i have moved over has had, and it's a ridiculous problem to have in 2016, where companies shouldn't be using weird platform-specific hacks, which is why i'm a bit miffed about it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mici01

So if it really is only the user agent. Get them a user Agent Switcher so O2 thinks there using Windows or MacOS.

Quote:

Originally Posted by huwdw

Does Chrome support extensions on Linux? There are some that can fake the user agent.

Yeah, that's what i'm planning to do. It's just an annoying problem that really makes me question the competence of whoever does O2's site. And it must have recently been added since the problem only started last month.

[Thine Wonk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Esot-eric

No free upgrade from XP to Windows 10. .

That's because XP is 15 years old though, no modern PC that was bought in the last 5 years would have come with it. Maybe time for a hardware upgrade, I suppose Linux is an option on really old hardware.

[de525ma]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thine Wonk

Linux isn't user friendly as far as ordinary users go. It's fine for IT people and for servers, but most Linux desktops are awful, even now. A classic example here http://youtu.be/NfjeZJUvQI0

I think TBH you'd have been better off putting your relatives on Windows 10.

According to the figures for April 2016 for the desktop and laptop market Linux has a 1.55% install base, with the Linux kernel responsible for 1.40% of web requests according to the user agent, so you say it's not 2006, but it kind of really is isn't it.

This is pretty irrelevant to the OP's problem though. I'm guessing that O2 have simply forgotten all about Linux when reading the user-agent string.

[Stig]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Esot-eric

It's just an annoying problem that really makes me question the competence of whoever does O2's site. And it must have recently been added since the problem only started last month.

It could be that O2 and others have been victim to some kind of fraud where people using Linux have hacked digital certificates or something. As above, ask them.