this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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You mean, there are still websites that don't auto-detect what OS you're running and make you actually choose?
I actually hate it when a website does that, especially when it doesn't let you download the application you want because your OS is not compatible. For example you wanna download some windows software to run it with Wine/Proton and the website detects you are running linux and does not let you download. I always need to spoof my User-Agent string to get access.
The correct solution (as with languages on websites) is to auto-detect but then make it super easy and obvious how to change if the auto detected version is not what the user wants.
Also if any web developers out there are reading - don't use the user's location to determine the language/region they want, and especially don't force it. I have no idea why so many websites do this but those responsible deserve to permanently have small amounts of sand in all their socks.
How do websites choose a language by location? What about countries that have more than once official language?
Yeah, I'm saying they shouldn't, but plenty of them do. They use geoip or location services to work out where you are and then use that to send you to the local site or the site in the language that they feel is appropriate for that location.
If you're really lucky they then make it difficult (and sometimes practically impossible) to switch.
Besides the problem you've highlighted for countries with multiple languages, you also have immigrants, people on holiday, multilingual people, VPN users... And it's not great for your SEO either.
I hated when Spotify forced me dutch language, glad I got my account deleted.
yeah it's really annoying all my devices are in english but my native language is german so sometimes it's in english and sometimes in german
The kind of website that distributes linux stuff is going to know most linux distros ship with Firefox set up to not report OS
Does librewolf do that too? I didn't realize that was a feature of firefox
Librewolf reports as Firefox on Win 10.
And this is why stats showing how prevalent Linux users are on a site are pretty useless.
Because an oddball browser based on Firefox says it's Firefox? I don't really follow the logic there. No one gave an example of the OS being wrong in a UA string
No. Because the firefox based browser shows linux as windows to refuse some tracking
Huh that's interesting, thanks
Not by default but configuring it to lie about your user agent is dead easy
Most software sites are staticly pre-generated. For just description, download, recent versions, links... there is no need for server side code. Also many browser obfuscate used operating system to currently most popular for fingerprinting restistace.
Hmm. If only it could all be done client side somehow, like maybe there should be a client side programming language for browsers? How cool would that be?
Of course, but someone needs to add it and who still uses web browser to download system packages besides using some outdated system at friend's house :).