I have an idea. A great idea, I think.
Ever since I posted about the 101 things that Mozilla can do that IE can’t I’ve been thinking about this. Most users are very content with IE, because they’ve never used anything else. Sure, maybe back in the day they used Netscape 4.x and decided that they were much happier, much saner people if they never touched that foul browser again. But ever since they started using IE, they’ve never bothered to try anything else. And, since IE holds such a large percentage of the browser market, developers continue to ensure that things work well in IE. This means that IE users never really have a reason to try Mozilla (or any other browser).
That’s when my idea came to me. I’ve thought of a humorous, light-hearted way for Mozilla users to show non-Mozilla users how much they enjoy the Mozilla browser, and, in the process, at least force people to try the browser out.
There is only one problem. I don’t know if my idea is technically feasible. I need a way to restrict access to a web resource based on what browser is being used. More specifically, I need a way of being 99.9% certain that the user accessing a specific web resource is using Mozilla (or, alternatively, at least a Mozilla-based browser). Does anyone know how to do this?
I could detect based on UserAgent. However, I think there are enough IE users out there with a clue that might know how to change their UserAgent. I don’t know, is this even possible in IE? If so, how difficult is it?
Doing it with JavaScript would be one method, but, viewing the source would most likely be enough to circumvent it.
Perhaps I could use XUL in some way? I’ve never used XUL and am not 100% certain what it can even be used for. Does anyone know if this is something I should continue to research?
Maybe I should use a combination of all three. You know, a Mozilla specific JavaScript function that calls a page that checks the browsers UserAgent before spitting out the data in XUL.
No idea is too ridiculous. Please, email me any information you might have. Or, if you don’t have any, ask your friends or post a link to this on your own site. Or, if you just love Mozilla and are willing to help with this project, send me an email.