ISPs in AU and NZ start censoring the internet without legal precedent - <AUTHOR> https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2019/03/isps-in-au-and-nz-start-censoring-the-internet-without-legal-precedent/ <comment><USER2> The problem with censoring and banning the information outright (in the case of NZ) is that it gives power to the manifesto. So much of what Jacinda Ardern said after the shooting was about denying the person a platform:

"We, in New Zealand, will give him nothing. Not even his name."

"He sought many things from his act of terror, but one was notoriety, and that is why you will never hear me mention his name."

And yet by the ISPs banning sites and with the New Zealand government classifying the manifesto as objectionable, they've done just that. They've told the people that the manifesto and the video are notorious by their decisions around it. They've put it on a pedestal and said, "this here holds power, and we should be scared of those who consume it".

<comment><USER3> No they haven't.

What they're doing is preventing the spread of radicalization to vulnerable demographics. They're breaking up the ability of alt-right groups to try and rally around it.

You don't get to shoot a bunch of people and have your manifesto spread far and wide. You get forgotten. And your manifesto gets banned. Because who cares what you had to say - it's irrelevant.

As to the video: go extract release forms from the families of the victims in it if you want to see to see it. See if they're okay with the last terrified moments of their loved ones being distributed as and broadcast worldwide, and the government okaying the sharing of that. It would be illegal to go to a hospital and film people dying in bed without permission - and it would exact significant criminal and financial penalties if you did so. This is _worse_.

<comment><USER2> > You get forgotten

That's the thing though - as long as something is banned, it doesn't stay forgotten. We see Tiananmen Square pop up all the time not because of its major historical significance, but because of the attempts by certain governments to censor it.

There are better ways to forget something collectively as a culture. Right now if you google "New Zealand shooting", half of the articles are about the banning of the information. The banning itself gave it more attention, and realistically it wont stop those who want to find it from finding it.

What I'd rather have seen was NZ focusing on the victims and the families. Drown out the manifesto with positivity. Focus the news cycle on the communities that have been affected; show them coming together and embracing each other. Make what is remembered not the shooter or their manifesto, but how the community responded.

<comment><USER4> > That's the thing though - as long as something is banned, it doesn't stay > forgotten.

Pretty much this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect)

Also, govt (democratic ones, esp) are notorious for being short-sighted and taking populist measures, so no surprises here: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses)

Imo, what the govt should considering doing (if they haven't already):

1\. Weed out rouge elements (sadly, extensive surveillance is one way to achieve this, another would be with help of citizen-journalists/investigators) within the state, and secure immigration points

2\. A focused task force to address internal threats and give them a degree of autonomy.

3\. A memorial to immortalize the victims.

4\. Govt mandated security at places of congregation of all sizes (malls, stations, places of worship, parks).

Edit: /s

<comment><USER5> So basically to protect freedom we need to create a police state with permanent security everywhere and live in constant fear.

Is /r/TopMindsOfHN a thing yet?

<comment><USER4> Sorry. I guess the sarcasm was too dry to be obvious?

I listed down things that other nation states (NSA? Abu Gharib/Patriot Act? Wall along the Radcliffe Line?) have done in the past in response to persistent danger. And are guilty of taking populist measures at a great expense, sometimes.

There's always been such knee-jerk reaction from nation states, that then resort to drastic initiatives partly because they do not understand technologies involved (Secure Golden Key?), or they aren't held accountable as often and get away with a lot (WMDs?).

Here's Bruce Schneier on the topic [https://youtu.be/GkJCI3_jbtg](https://youtu.be/GkJCI3_jbtg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The government of New Zealand's entire response to the shooting incident, as well as the public's cheering for it, is the most disturbing Orwellian thing I've ever seen. The level of authoritarian curbing of freedoms that has seemingly happened overnight at the stroke of a pen should seriously concern anyone who values constitutionally limited government. I'm all for the debate, but as an American it's unimaginable to see such reactionary, arbitrary, far sweeping action taken by a supposed free country with almost no discussion or legal process.

<comment><USER7> > the most disturbing Orwellian thing I've ever seen. The level of > authoritarian curbing of freedoms that has seemingly happened overnight at > the stroke of a pen should seriously concern anyone who values > constitutionally limited government.

Woah hold the hyperbole. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt.

What actions specifically are you even referring to? The change in gun laws? Australia banned semi-automatics. It's survived. Pretty sure New Zealand will be okay without them too.

This post is about the ISPs banning sites, not something that the government of either country directed. (As the post makes clear Australia's largest telco is also banning these sites.)

> I'm all for the debate, but as an American it's unimaginable to see such > reactionary, arbitrary, far sweeping action taken by a supposed free country > with almost no discussion or legal process.

What was far sweeping and done with no discussion or legal process? You pretend like there isn't a parliament with elected members, a far more representative and democratic parliament that any US government due to the use of proportional representation. This parliament is the legislative branch and can, well enact legislation, which is doing to ban semi automatic weapons based on the results of previous government enquiries into the matter that weren't acted on.

(Talk about throwing stones here, seemingly nobody remembers 9/11 and the Patriot Act, and mass spying on Americans, and trillions spent on false wars that followed.)

A civil debate about the actions of these ISPs and the ability of private companies operating as utilities to censor or throttle or otherwise mess with neutrality of the utility they provide is very much warranted, but you're not doing that here.

<comment><USER8> The ISPs aren't banning sites for kicks. New Zealanders have been arrested for distributing the video.

<comment><USER9> Great, please show me the act of parliament done in the light of day that made this illegal? The video SHOULD NOT BE WATCHED. It stand for everything I as a human abhor. However it is slippy slope, that leads to no good end.

<comment><USER8> I don't know what you mean by "act of parliament". This video should most definitely be watched in order to understand this event in full. No description of what happened can impart upon you the brutality of watching him go back in to double tap the victims. There is a severe lack of understanding of the impact of our actions when we choose to censor events like this.

<comment><USER10> People lost their lives terribly, that much can be understood without watching it. What more do you really gain by watching the video? Do you have some morbid curiosity that you need to satisfy? Do you think we should disregard the feelings of the survivors or those who lost someone close? How do you think they feel about the video being shared? How would you? Do you think they deserve respect and solidarity? If so, how does sharing the video contribute to that?

<comment><USER11> If someone wants to watch it, regardless of the intent, they should be allowed to. Disrespect should not be illegal. That's silly.

<comment><USER10> That's not even an argument. So people should be allowed to watch child porn?

Plenty of parallels between the two. People are hurt in the filming of both. It's damaging to the survivors. It feeds into the fetishes of those who would watch such a thing (it's a snuff film). In the case of this film I could argue that potential perpetrators could study the film for their own plans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> While not an official statement, this forum post from a Spark employee is worth a read: [https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=184&topicid=24...](https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=184&topicid=248227&page_no=6#2198928)

\---

 _I am NOT officially empowered to talk about this but I want to shut down any conjecture right now.

No actions of Spark taken now or over the next 24 hours or so should be considered representative of policy. They may turn out to be temporary, they may even with hindsight not be considered the best move. However the number of direct links going around to certain sites and threads where some truly horrific and almost certainly illegal material was being hosted met a threshold for immediate and extraordinary action. We're killing the DNS entries for a couple of sites.

I should note that this had approval from the highest levels, and we're not the only ISP doing this.

Right now is where we all get a chance to demonstrate our humanity in the face of a terrible tragedy. Reach out and help people. I know many people in Chch and around the country that are in shock. I know I am - and I know there are hundreds or thousands of people that are directly massively impacted by this today.

At some point in the near future we'll evaluate what to roll back. But not today.

Cheers - Neil Gardner_

<comment><USER13> > No actions of Spark taken now or over the next 24 hours or so should be > considered representative of policy.

That's not how it works. When you claim to have a policy, and don't bother to even pretend that it governs your actions, your actions will be taken to represent your policy, because what people care about is your actual policy, not a document you happen to call your "policy".

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The mobile operator Jio does the same thing here in India. Any content that offends their conservative interests, is routinely blocked without any legal repurcussions.

If ISPs want to act as curators to content they just provide access to, then they should be held legally liable for illegal content. Else, just act as a dumb pipe and give up all responsibility.

<comment><USER15> "then they should be held legally liable for illegal content"

Thanks for bringing this point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Not everyone holds the same absolute views on freedom of speech as those drawn up in the American constitution. There is also plenty of opposing views of a "constitutionally limited government" that seems to be at the heart of American culture.

Frankly, it's pretty disturbing how many Americans are unable to comprehend that their way isn't the "only way" that can be valid.

The New Zealand Bill of Rights provides freedom of expression, but it's also limited by the human rights act. Racial disharmony is illegal. Even if the shooter didn't follow through with the shootings, he could have been punished for simply publishing that manifesto of his.

<comment><USER17> > "Racial disharmony is illegal."

Why? Why should racial disharmony be illegal? It sucks when people don't like you, maybe they have good reasons, maybe not - but legislating "harmony" just sounds wrong.

Also, why are people allowed to loudly proclaim "white people are evil" loudly, and broadly, without issues - isn't that also racial disharmony?

<comment><USER18> Why? because Australia and NZ have large immigrant populations (in fact, _are_ large immigrant populations) that contain many races. Racial disharmony causes huge problems, and creates the real possibility of violence, mayhem and bloodshed. As reasonable societies, these things are seen as bad and to be avoided. Consequently, actions that will create racial disharmony are illegal.

You can hate on whoever you like, but you can't grab a megaphone, head down to the mall, and encourage other people to hate the same people that you do. I don't know about you, but that seems like a pretty benign restriction to me...

<comment><USER19> > but you can't grab a megaphone, head down to the mall, and encourage other > people to hate the same people that you do

Your example is a misdirection. What you describe is being a public nuisance in a public area, not free speech. I don't want to be subjected to nasty, racist rhetoric in a public space, just as I don't want to be harangued to repent of my sins and "Let Jesus into my life" in the same place. But I support the right of people to be able to express these views in a published form, or in closed spaces such as on a talking tour or in a church. In both cases audiences are seeking to be exposed to these views and are actively going to a place to find them, not having them pushed on them as they go about their ordinary lives.

<comment><USER20> > In both cases audiences are seeking to be exposed to these views

If people only hear what they want to hear then issues will never be resolved. It's necessary to hear things sometimes, even if it's personally revolting or bothersome. Everyone has to deal with annoying people in life and laws won't fix it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Those websites were distributing material that was illegal under New Zealand law (content relating to the recent terrorist attack).

Any person in New Zealand who possesses objectionable content is liable for imprisonment for up to 10 years. Distributing the objectionable content can result in imprisonment for up to 14 years.

The ISPs were simply declining to distribute or possess the objectionable content (which would have be illegal for them to distribute or possess).

[https://www.dia.govt.nz/Censorship-Objectionable-and- Restric...](https://www.dia.govt.nz/Censorship-Objectionable-and-Restricted- Material)

<comment><USER22> Reminds me of the first episode of Black Mirror, when the British PM is preparing for his act with the pig, his aides try to calm him by saying that the parliament have just passed a law that prohibits the possession of the material that's about to be broadcasted.

<comment><USER23> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_National_Anthem_%28Black_M...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_National_Anthem_%28Black_Mirror%29)

See also..

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piggate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piggate)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> So just like after 9/11 in the US, the terrorists win. They scare the powers that be into making life worse for an entire country's citizens. I guess people never learn from history. Both corporations and the government end up doing the terrorists' bidding while thinking they are protecting people. The people have no say. I bet the shooters are laughing from their cells just like al quada did from its caves. Terrorism all around. I'm sure this is just the beginning just like 9/11 was just the beginning of a terror campaign mostly waged by our own government here in the US.

<comment><USER25> Why do you say life is worse here?

We've banned most semi auto guns.

And his writing and video have been classed as objectionable...

Why's my life worse off for the governments actions?

<comment> identity-haver For one, your ability to defend your self and your family has been partially abrogated. Now it depends more on physical strength and the wealth to live in a safe area with other defenses.

Second, your ability to access the internet has been shown to be arbitrarily limitable, kind of like China's great firewall.

Third, your ability to speak and communicate about political issues has been tamped. Today it's possessing somebody else's anti-Muslim manifesto that gets you 10 years, tomorrow it's an anti-party manifesto. Let me take a look through all your private messages and documents, and believe me, I will find something that I can "class as objectionable".

<comment><USER25> NZer's weren't stock piling guns to defend themselves with so your first argument just isn't valid to begin with.

This isn't a government ordered blocking. NZ does have a govt blacklist but it isn't enforced, ISP's opt into it. My ISP didn't block anything.

No one needs to read that manifesto to debate far right fascism.

<comment><USER26> One is not a stockpile under any reasonable definition.

Your government doesn't allow the ownership of guns for self-defense but so far it doesn't outright prohibit them from being used that way.

<comment><USER25> You are correct. To quote the arms code - [https://www.police.govt.nz/sites/default/files/publications/...](https://www.police.govt.nz/sites/default/files/publications/the- arms-code-2013.pdf) (page 41)

"Citizens are justified in using force in self-defence in certain situations. The force that is justified will depend on the circumstances of the particular case. Every person is criminally responsible for any excessive use of force against another person.

A firearm is a lethal weapon. To justify the discharge of a firearm at another person the user must hold a honest belief that they or someone else is at imminent threat of death or grievous bodily harm.

Discharge of a firearm at another person will result in a Police investigation and what ever the consequences of the incident you may face serious criminal charges."

It's worth keeping in mind that we still have guns, it's just a certain type of gun that's getting banned. And it's worked well in Aus so far.

<comment><USER26> Certain _types_ of gun. It's not just one type being banned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I just checked, and only three of the thirteen "blocked" sites are not working. Of those eztv.is appears to have a DNS problem (no A record, only an SOA record pointing at a parking address of the registrar), and traceroutes archive.is and archive.fo get as far as an address in the Netherlands, so I don't think they're blocked in NZ. ISP is 2degrees, Cloudflare DNS.

On a side-note, I'm probably now on some watch list.

<comment><USER28> What I'm finding somewhat interesting is that Cloudflare (18.104.22.168) appears to be sinkholing that DNS request for me (I'm currently inside Australia - 127.0.0.3 is being returned) whereas Google (126.96.36.199) does not (126.96.36.199 returned). Doesn't look like it's just me either - ViewDNS [1] is currently showing 'www.archive.is' returning 127.0.0.3 from Sydney.

[1][https://viewdns.info/propagation/?domain=www.archive.is](https://viewdns.info/propagation/?domain=www.archive.is)

<comment><USER29> archive.is intentionally returns the wrong result to us:

[https://community.cloudflare.com/t/archive-is- error-1001/182...](https://community.cloudflare.com/t/archive-is- error-1001/18227)

We've asked them, repeatedly, to stop doing this. They refuse. It's bizarre.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I would encourage everybody who was taken aback by the shooting to read the manifesto, if you are legally allowed to. It helped me better understand this groundswell of overt racism we've seen in the last few years and, by an inverse reading of it, provided some strategies on how we might resist it.

If you're there type of person that reads this manifesto and thinks, "yes I agree with this and I should do what it says" then you'd also react the same way to Mein Kampf and you're already a violent racist. These writings provide really valuable insights into what drives these abhorrent political movements and how to counteract them. They don't go away if you close your eyes.

</comment><comment><USER31> Did anyone else notice that ZeroHedge is apparently now a site so dangerous that entire populations can't be exposed to it?

ZEROHEDGE?

Jeez, I've been reading articles on and off there for years and have never hurt a fly. What are they afraid of exactly, mass outbreaks of gold hoarding, extremists who disagree with central bank monetary policy?

I just visited and one of the top stories is objecting to an apparent trend of US cops shooting dogs. How is this site considered systematically dangerous by New Zealand ISPs?

Or is this what we always see censors do - decide terrorist attacks by white men justify blocking large swathes of ordinary conservative political opinion that has nothing to do with race or religion?

</comment><comment><USER32> Interesting that [https://www.archive.is/](https://www.archive.is/) is on the list. I find that a little hard to believe, but perhaps there were popular links to it being shared.

</comment><comment><USER33> If they censor in this way then they are not a real internet service and should not call that (nor should they be given the enough IPv4 address ranges like ISPs; so, maybe they will run out if they are not a real ISP!) (unless perhaps you can get rid of the censorships by disabling NAT which you would freely be allowed to do, maybe). Real internet connect through proper protocol routing to the address based only on the packet header, and not the port number or payload (unless the packet is directed to the ISP's servers anyways), for the purpose only to routing to the correct destination and to receive the correct reply (if the payload is incorrect, they should send it anyways; that is not for the ISP to consider unless the packet is directed at their own servers) (however, if the header is incorrect (including specifying addresses that are impossible, but not only if they are merely censored), then they can block it; note I mean the IP header, and not the TCP or UDP header, which is at the other level than the routing, so they should not tamper with). (For example, if the packet specifies 127.0.0.1 as the source or destination address, then they are allowed to block it; and if you do such thing too much, they can even warn you to correct your computer.)

</comment><comment><USER34> I think that the main thing missing here is that the NZ ISPs started blocking access to the snuff film within hours of the terrorist's slaughter, the government started making proclamations days later.

The snuff film fetishists started passing it around within minutes of it being broadcast, if anything one can argue that the ISPs started too late.

Remember by NZ law something like this snuf film is created 'obscene', the censor just confirms that it is, you're legally responsible for not breaking the law by copying it, or publishing it from that first moment that it exists ... and so are our ISPs, these laws were written for film, transient copies caused by their customers accessing the illegal content puts them at legal risk, all they can do is to refuse to let people access the places which could put them (the ISPs) at risk

</comment><comment><USER35> New Zealand has operated a country-wide content filter for years. It is primarily used to filter out "content depicting the sexual abuse or exploitation of children and young persons" [1]. Filtering of objectionable content is entirely within the social norms of New Zealand.

For comparison, since the video and manifesto have been labelled "objectionable" [2] it would be illegal to burn either to a disk and then carry the disk across the border. The argument the government will make is that this is applying the same rules to content imported into the country via the Internet instead.

If the population expects the social networks to take this content down, they will expect ISPs to remove access to social networks which do _not_ take the content down.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_New_Zea...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_New_Zealand) [2] [https://www.classificationoffice.govt.nz/news/latest- news/ch...](https://www.classificationoffice.govt.nz/news/latest- news/christchurch-attacks-press-releases/#christchurch-attack-video-footage- and-document-has-been-banned-in-nz-what-this-means-for-you)

<comment><USER36> Questions of appropriateness in this scenario put aside, the fact that an internet filter which started for "please think of the children" reasons has expanded in scope is eminently predictable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Ironically, this page itself is unavailable from AU - or is it just me?

<comment><USER38> I can read it just fine from here (Telstra 4G)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> All the sites in the article were hosting illegal (in NZ) content - they were temporarily blocked till the video (of a terrorist killing innocent people) was taken down.

Nobody needs to see that.

It's not about free speech.

The sites in question are used to spread hate, racism, violence and bigotry.

Why are we tolerating this kind of media in our lives? Why are we letting people upload this?

It is not free speech. It is targeted hate.

<comment><USER40> Hate speech is free speech that you happen to not like.

<comment><USER25> Except this is hate speech. Or are you saying it isn't

<comment><USER40> I dislike it, so it's hate speech, of course!

But I tend to believe that I should not have the power to determine what can or cannot be said, _and that no one else should have that power either_.

<comment><USER41> If you were to say, make a pro-ISIS video, or Tweet, would you expect to remain unmolested by the authorities in the United States? All societies set boundaries on what is acceptable speech.

<comment><USER40> I would expect making a pro-ISIS video/tweet to leave me without additional molestation from the government, yes. Probably wouldn't stay up on YouTube, but other sites don't seem to have a problem with such things. (stereotypically, that would be LiveLeak)

You can check out the list of exceptions to free speech in the US here [0]. I disagree with a number of them, but an "ISIS is awesome and this is why" video would fall under none of them. (the same goes for a "Hitler was awesome" video, a "Trump is awesome" video, or a "Trump is a fascist and we need to rise up in violent rebellion" video)

0: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions)

<comment><USER41> _I would expect making a pro-ISIS video /tweet to leave me without additional molestation from the government, yes_

If you made pro-ISIS materials, you can expect the US government to closely monitor you, and quite likely attempt to entrap you.[1]

If you made large numbers of pro-ISIS videos, even if you were a US citizen, there would be a strong possibility that you would be killed [2]

[1] [https://www.cleveland.com/metro/2018/07/fbi_arrest_of_clevel...](https://www.cleveland.com/metro/2018/07/fbi_arrest_of_cleveland_terror.html)

[2][https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/magazine/the-lessons- of-a...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/magazine/the-lessons-of-anwar-al- awlaki.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> There is free speech, and then there is sensible. In NZ we don't use the perpetrators name and we don't want you looking at his messages. Get over it!

<comment><USER43> Well, we could just turn the entire internet off, then the messages would surely be hidden.

Archive.is has a lot more than one page.

<comment><USER42> Well that would be silly.

<comment><USER43> the point is, you have to draw a line somewhere, and if the line is "nobody can see anything this guy wrote" then the collateral damage is going to be perhaps just too much.

When I said Archive.is has more than one page, I meant we're blocking millions of non-offending pages for the sake of blocking one that offends.

So, how far will we go? Block Archive.is? Block Facebook? The whole internet?

<comment><USER44> This level of heavy handedness was unprecedented in the west, and is more characteristic of China than anything else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> EDIT: removed because I did not realize what kind of website the site I linked was.

<comment><USER46> trying to be charitable here; could you perhaps expand on the point you're trying to make by posting this exchange?

It otherwise looks like a very insensitive, small-minded person responding overly aggressively to what is otherwise a very reasonable and restrained request from the NZ Police.

<comment><USER45> Sure, the meat of what I thought interesting was the initial email. I thought it was concerning that the NZ police were looking to get IP/email addresses of people merely conversing about the attacker.

The rest of the thread is just funny because the police respond in the best way possible to the site operator's freakout.

<comment><USER46> in what world is that concerning? They've been trying to discern if there was a cell of people around who harbour the same intent as this man, or if he was acting alone. New Zealand, a sovereign nation, has every right to request that information. The email was simply a case of whether the maintainer of the site would respond reasonably to a request from the NZ judicial system, or whether they would need to subpeona the information using the US judicial system. If that maintainer of that site is serving content to New Zealand, that it seems reasonable that he should be beholden to NZ laws.

As a part of there investigation into the act this man committed, they're looking at all activity around the event and the sort of people engaging with it. From a quick look at that website and the thread you linked, I expect (and at least hope), that most of the people who frequent it are now on a watch list after the events of last week.

<comment><USER24> > If that maintainer of that site is serving content to New Zealand, that it > seems reasonable that he should be beholden to NZ laws.

So should be also be beholden to Chinese, Saudi Arabian, Russian, North Korean, and other governments' laws for simply having a website? That's beyond absurd and by that line of reasoning, most website operators should be jailed in some country or other. This is one of the most absurd arguments I've ever read. Luckily, it has no legal basis. Hopefully it never will.

<comment><USER46> see my reply to the sibling comment. I would also ask you to be charitable in your reading of my words.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> My apologies. Might I ask a question, please? How do we otherwise stop the internet being hacked to support these vile creatures?

<comment><USER47> I'm concerned that "censorship of bad views" leads to radicalisation. e.g. if you have concerns that are morally unacceptable to express, the only place you can express those concerns are in morally unacceptable areas.

I think the hope of censoring bad views is to increase that friction before people get there; make it harder for 'ordinary' people to stumble across vile sites, and reduce access to vile sites to those determined to get it.

I'm concerned that having a hammer of "censorship makes this problem goes away" makes it easier to see other social problems as nails. One line to draw is "censor speech which directly incites or leads to violence". It seems the line NZ is drawing (and ISPs preemptively drew) is "objectionable" or "injurious to the public good". That seems much easier to abuse.

<comment><USER48> We have abundant evidence that not censoring bad views also leads to radicalisation. So your argument is weak.

<comment><USER49> I'm really interested in that. Do you have links to any studies or other sources?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: We got tired of asking 'What browser are you using?' and created this - <AUTHOR> https://aboutmybrowser.com <comment><USER2> Let me make a suggestion: for reporting, return a URL with a set of word codes rather than numbers and letters.

<https://aboutmybrowser.com/dog_walrus_banana_door>

If you figure out a set of 1000 short words that are not too close to each other and easy to pronounce, four of them gives you a trillion possible combinations. If you window it so that the first word is always the same on a given day and keep a record of that list, you can differentiate a billion combinations in a day and have a good check that the information was gathered recently (or else is a thousand or more days old.) <http://www.manythings.org/vocabulary/lists/l/> will get you common words, as a start.

<comment><USER3> Beware that "walrus" may not be that easy to pronounce by a foreigner :)

<comment><USER4> Using the 26 letters from the NATO alphabet might be easier, it's made to be intelligible for non-English speakers over a radio connection with static.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_phonetic_alphabet>

<comment><USER5> Good starting point, but that won't get him trillions of combinations.

<comment><USER6> It does with 9 letters. In this case though I think I'd use them like a counter, so I would probably still top out at around 4 or 5.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow, talk about synchronicity... I put up our site doing the exact same thing _last night_! Design-wise you're definitely ahead, however. :-)

Our version is at <http://www.browser-details.com>. When you sign up you get your own subdomain - or you define a CNAME under your own domain [premium]. You can upload your logo, define a list of recipients, and your clients can send the browser details directly to one of those recipients/departments.

We still need to change the color scheme (I wanted to launch at the end of the week, so it's straight Bootstrap for now) and finish the translation to German. Also: Premium version!

Feel free to be a beta tester! Also: all the best to the OP, great idea! ;-)

<comment><USER8> Your site correctly identified my browser as Chrome for iPhone. OP's site detected it as Safari on OS/2. Kudos. Perhaps you could share some insights on why this might be.

<comment><USER7> Sure! We're using <http://user-agent-string.info/>

I didn't feel up to doing the parsing myself...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Cool. How about adding a way to automatically fire off a web hook after sniffing the information. As in:

"Thanks for reporting the issue. Would you mind following this link so that we can get some information about your web browser? <https://aboutmybrowser.com/?to=mysite.com/browserhook>

Or better, let me sign up for an account and register a named webhook with you, as in, <https://aboutmybrowser.com/mysite>, that would automatically forward information from anybody hitting it to the webhook url I'd configured at mysite.com.

That would rock.

<comment><USER10> Yep! That's the next step. We wanted to get the MVP out and get feedback from the community. Please follow us on Twitter to stay updated (again, no bullshit and just product announcements) - <https://twitter.com/aboutmybrowser>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> There's also supportdetails.com which has a feature to let you customise [1] the recipient email etc so people can easily forward the details through to you.

[1] [http://supportdetails.com/?sender_name=example&sender=em...](http://email@example.comemail@example.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep. That one looks good and showed up in our research as well. In aboutmybrowser, we generate a custom url for you so you can copy the url and share your info easily. No need to copy all the text or enter your email to share the info. Just better to protect your privacy and anonymity.

More of the similar products out there focus on users who want to find out their info (basically savvy users). This is for support agents who want to find out their users' browser info without asking them to go through so much trouble

<comment><USER12> > _No need to copy all the text or enter your email to share the info._ //

So a support provider has to send the user to your site. The user then has to copy the URL, paste it in to a message, lookup the person making the request for the details and forward them. The requester has to then go to your site and enter the URL in order to retrieve the details.

Compared with the support supplier sending an email with a link to [http://supportdetails.com/?sender_name=Example&sender=em...](http://firstname.lastname@example.comemail@example.com) and the user clicking "send details" and the requester getting the details in their email.

All to protect the company offering the service from getting your email address?

<comment><USER5> Most of my tech support requests come in via email anyway. I send them to supportdetails.com, and they're very happy to send me an email. We have a tech-savvy userbase, so usually they say they liked it so much they'll use it themselves.

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the feedback. We have added a share widget which also has share by email as an option. Please check it out

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> That's an interesting Firefox logo you're displaying. Rather than featuring the generic "Planet Mozilla" globe, it appears to be using a map of Earth centered on Japan. The fox looks a bit sleeker as well.

For comparison, here's the official Firefox branding page: <http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/brand/identity/>

<comment><USER10> I never noticed that :) Here is the icon set (free for commercial use) - <http://www.iconfinder.com/search/?q=iconset%3Abrowsers>

<comment><USER14> the official icons for all the browsers have licenses that allow them to be used anywhere, as long as they are only used to refer only to their official product (i.e. you can use the firefox logo anywhere you want, as long as you only use it to mean firefox and not some other product)

IANAL, but i believe that creative reproductions like the ones you are using violate the trademark of the actual icon owner, and they certainly violate the branding guidelines of all the browsers in question.

Just use the official icons: it's clearer for your users, and it is what the browser vendors want you to do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> With Maxthon I get "We're sorry, but something went wrong" (<https://aboutmybrowser.com/398693348>)

Also, why are you using (ugly) unofficial icons for some of the browsers (Opera for example)? :)

<comment><USER16> Same for stock JB browser.

<comment><USER17> Also Chrome on JB.

<comment><USER18> and Rockmelt

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> As geeks, we tend to forget sometimes how trivial questions such as "What browser are you using" leave some users completely stumped. Heck, there may be so many people who do not even know the meaning of a browser. This seems a simple yet great way to get the required info. Kudos!

</comment><comment><USER20> A couple of things:

I have cookies and javascript turned off in Chrome on Android. This apparently is too much to handle as I keep getting the standard rails request failure page.

I switched to the default android browser where I run JavaScript and accept cookies and was told I was running Chrome on Linux.

I then went back to Chrome and hit "request desktop site" which just changes the user agent string and was told I had Chrome on Linux. But also was told that I needed to turn on JavaScript to see the rest of the details. Why? It's just text.

<comment><USER20> Here are the three URLs respectively:

<https://aboutmybrowser.com/3112024109> <https://aboutmybrowser.com/2548601500> <https://aboutmybrowser.com/3662672473>

I see now that some of the extra info is only discernable via JavaScript. But surely the info about whether JavaScript and cookies are enabled could be shown either way?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Love it, I forwarded it to our QA and support team. One problem seems to be since the url bar is automatically updated (redirect?) with the current results people ended up bookmarking it instead of the just "aboutmybrowser.com" so they saw FF come up as a result in IE and such when opening in other browser.

</comment><comment><USER22> Another great tool that does this is <http://supportdetails.com/> I like how aboutmybrowser allows you to grab a quick link to share.

<comment><USER23> We use this. Works great and is very user-friendly even for people who aren't good with computers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> > We're sorry, but something went wrong.

Iceweasel 15 (rebadged Firefox) on Linux.

<comment><USER10> Oops :( Can you please pass on the url string you got? (That has all your info)

<comment><USER25> Lynx 2.8.6rel.4: <https://aboutmybrowser.com/1283428590>

Lynx 2.8.8dev.2: <https://aboutmybrowser.com/4027520259>

Links 2.1pre32: <https://aboutmybrowser.com/3138479085>

ELinks 0.11.1: <https://aboutmybrowser.com/3604611808>

(Text-based browsers deserve love, too.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi. We have fixed these errors now. Please check it out...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Seems nice. A couple of things: 1) It would be cool if it gets shorter urls so it would be usable on phone. 2) It detects Safari on Linux for me. Im using Konqueror. <https://aboutmybrowser.com/848858317>

<comment><USER10> Thanks for pointing out the bug. We'll work on it. 'Safari on linux' does sound weird, doesn't it? :)

We'll work on the urls. As such the layout scales down on phones (thanks to Bootstrap 2.0)

<comment><USER27> Great tool! I can definitely see myself using this :-)

I viewed the site with Chrome for iOS (on an iPad 2), and it detected "Safari on OS/2". Is that correct?

<comment><USER28> lolno (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS/2>). But it's funny.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> It looks like it detects the resolution of the primary display. I'm not sure if there's a way to pick the "right" display, though.

      Screen Width        1440
      Screen Height       900
      Browser Width       2560
      Browser Height      1368

<comment><USER30> I'm not really sure if it's a glitch in the tool or that the resolution is (deliberately?) misreported by my browser, but on my iPad 3 it reports 1024x768.

A nice extension to this would be to add some kind of database of popular mobile devices, so you can detect the device type from the reported attributes. I think you coud extract some interesting device usage statistics out of it.

<comment><USER31> That's the size reported by Safari so that pages scale correctly for a "retina" screen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Nice. We did the same thing a few months ago and released it as open source: <http://denimandsteel.com/work/browser-wink/>

</comment><comment><USER33> Please make the 'Copy Link' button the biggest primary looking thing on the page. Like 48px big big.

</comment><comment><USER34> Hoping to see wget info, tried getting it via wget and it showed something went wrong :-(

<https://aboutmybrowser.com/2691400901>

</comment><comment><USER35> I think if you add a "share via e-mail" feature right underneath it, it would be awesome.

</comment><comment><USER36> Suggestion: Check the version against the latest release and kindly notify visitors if a newer release is available. Provide the link to make it easy to upgrade.

I've often had family and friends ask me why some site or service doesn't work but they don't know if their browsers are up to date. I would love to start by directing them to a site like this and telling them to upgrade if they aren't using the latest version of their browser.

</comment><comment><USER37> I use <http://supportdetails.com/> . It's solved this problem for me since atleast the last 4 years.

<comment><USER38> I actually prefer the one you linked, over this new one. I like the layout, and sharing options better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I don't know how easy it is (or if it's even possible) but it would be really useful to detect what add-ons are enabled. Things like Adblock, Flashblock, cause a lot of trouble and some users don't even know that they have them installed.

I also wonder whether it's possible to detect whether Flash is actually _enabled_. I disable the Flash plugin on Chrome by default, but tools like this generally don't pick up on that.

<comment><USER40> _I also wonder whether it's possible to detect whether Flash is actually enabled._

You should be able to try to actually _do something_ with a tiny embedded flash application and have that flip a "yes, flash is really on" bit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> It's unfortunate that when using IE, both this and supportdetails.com only give versions as specific as "Windows XP" and "IE 8", whereas I get more detailed version info using Chrome on OS X.

I'm trying to track down an IE issue and would love for our support team to get customers to use something like this. But we need more info to make it easier to reproduce the problem.

<comment><USER10> Can you please give us the permalink you get? Here or at email@example.com so we can debug this? We want to make this super useful. This is just a MVP.

<comment><USER41> Here you go:

<https://aboutmybrowser.com/890034160>

Windows XP on Virtuabox

<comment><USER41> Ah, I probably could have been more clear. I was expecting (hoping) for more information. It doesn't seem to have anything wrong, but it would be great if it was possible to get a more detailed version number, like 8.0.6001.18702.

<comment><USER42> A quick look at your User Agent string suggests there is no detailed version number made available by your browser in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Windows 8 (rtm) is detected as "Windows NT"

<https://aboutmybrowser.com/647576433>

</comment><comment><USER10> This is our weekend hack. Would love your feedback.

The app is primarily for people doing customer support to understand if their users are using supported browsers and right plugins (like flash etc).

Info link - <https://aboutmybrowser.com/?nr> (no-redirect since we want it to be zero click for your users)

<comment><USER44> If you access a direct link (to someone's browser info) the page should make it clear that it's not your browser you are visiting. Now it says "share your browser info" even if you opened some other url.

<comment><USER45> Nice idea - this could be achieved by dropping a cookie.

<comment><USER46> I guess what he is trying to do is, ask user's OS, Browser, whether Flash or any other plugin is installed or not when you are talking to customer for support. Not to gather stats.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> works nicely for me in firefox/opera, but doesn't do too well in anything else... although I'd doubt you'd need to worry about them too much, still, it's always nice to see apps like this fail gracefully, if you had a 'this particular browser isn't supported' type message rather than 'something went wrong'

<http://imgur.com/a/chkc2>

broken useragents..

konqueror: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/4.6; Linux) KHTML/4.6.5 (like Gecko) Fedora/4.6.5-8.fc14

seamonkey: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:220.127.116.11) Gecko/20110429 Fedora/2.0.14-1.fc14 SeaMonkey/2.0.14

dillo: dillo/0.8.6 < \-- wouldn't worry about that one too much :)

epiphany: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-ie) AppleWebKit/534.16+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0 Safari/534.16+ Epiphany/2.30.6

midori: Midori/0.2 (X11; Linux; U; en-ie) WebKit/534.7+

<comment><AUTHOR> We have fixed these errors now. Please check it out...

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> You don't make a great use of screen space. On my laptop, the very bottom thing on the page I can see is a giant 'chrome' logo. I initially assumed all you were doing is displaying the icon of my web-browser. 2/3 of the screen height is basically empty, apart from one tiny text box.

</comment><comment><USER49> You should be grabbing this on your contact us page for your technical support enquiries and then, in your message to whomever gets the requests, add a bit add the bottom with 'for technical support use' followed by the browser information.

</comment><comment><USER16> Latest (regular desktop) Chrome on Windows 8 gets reported as Windows NT.

I mean.. Sure there's probably quite a bit of remnants from the Windows NT codebase here and there, but it's probably not very useful for reporting to support etc.

</comment><comment><USER50> Any modern version of Windows will show up here as "Windows NT". I think you should be able to determine the correct version through the user agent string. "Windows NT 6.2" is Win8, 6.1 is Win7, 6.0 is Vista.

</comment><comment><USER51> Nice, but it does not work very well for me (Opera on Mac). It reports the browser and OS correctly, but then it claims I do not have JavaScript enabled (which I do). Also when I click Contact support at the bottom, the page gets dimmed out as if for a dialog, but I see no actual dialog anywhere. So somewhere in your JS code there is a bug that makes it fail in Opera. <https://aboutmybrowser.com/2079851324>

</comment><comment><USER52> I had to send five "what browser are you using" e-mails just last Friday. And people never send the OS when we ask. Thank you, thank you for making this.

<comment><USER40> One thing that has become standard practice for me is to have any "contact us" forms or error reporting pages automatically include all of this information when sending messages. I also generally record persist the browser information on important "events" such as registration and login, so I can refer to it if I need it later.

You don't need it most of the time, but it saves so much time to not have to bother asking for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> There's a feature in a few iOS browsers (Atomic, Sleipnir at least) to report as something else to avoid broken mobile sites or whatever.

There are a number of firefox add ons that do the same, this one has site specific settings which is exactly what I needed and it works great:

<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/uacontrol/>

</comment><comment><USER54> It would be great to combine some public data source about browsers together with what you have like, for example, adding information from WURFL:

<http://wurfl.sourceforge.net/help_doc.php>

Mind their (new) license tho if you plan to use them specifically.

Seems like a great fit so the user does not have to perform their own cross- referencing.

</comment><comment><USER55> Might not work properly for users in China. It's telling me I don't have JavaScript enabled, when I do (Firefox on OSX, no weird extensions), and based on the tab bar icon is still loading after >2 minutes. Perhaps you're loading some blocked-in-China script that's preventing your page load event?

<comment><USER55> Update: The page did eventually load and worked properly. I looked at your page source and found Facebook and Google Plus, which are both blocked here - that would probably be what was stopping it working before. Perhaps you should load these asynchronously, instead of waiting for them to load / time out before updating the information?

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> If I visit with an odd User Agent I get a server error.

<https://aboutmybrowser.com/47523742> is an example where I used User Agent Switcher in Firefox with the UA string

        Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/4.5; FreeBSD) KHTML/4.5.4 (like Gecko)

<comment><USER10> Thanks for reporting this. Only when we started working on this we realized how complex user agent string parsing is. We will be improving it with all the feedback so you can expect things to be better in a day or so.

<comment><USER57> Offtopic though, You might want to read how user agent strings have evolved - <http://webaim.org/blog/user-agent-string-history/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> I gave this out in a suggestion couple weeks ago in #javascript on freenode. Nice job, since this is what I was looking for. Previously was using <http://www.mybrowserinfo.com/detail.asp?bhcp=1>

</comment><comment><USER59> Related: <http://supportdetails.com/>

</comment><comment><USER60> Is it possible to identify certain add-ons in firefox even if they aren't in the user agent string, or is that the only information you get from the client?

Would be cool if it could tell that I use pentadactyl, stylish, ad-block plus etc. etc.

</comment><comment><USER61> (non-ambiguous) letters rather than numbers would be better to keep the urls short.

</comment><comment><USER62> Too much scrolling for the amount of information given, otherwise, good job!

</comment><comment><USER63> It is identifying both chromium and firefox as chrome on Linux. The User Agent String looks suspicious too..

<http://imgur.com/eYdlo,XjsOH>

EDIT: I am on ArchLinux if that helps.

<comment><USER64> Oddly enough, it is identifying Firefox 15 and Chrome 21 correctly on Ubuntu 12.04. I'm on an open wifi in a cafe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Firefox on mac shows me this :P

[https://dl.dropbox.com/u/14534468/Screen%20Shot%202012-09-10...](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/14534468/Screen%20Shot%202012-09-10%20at%2011.17.40%20AM.png)

</comment><comment><USER10> We just fixed a bunch of errors and you should see results for android and several other browsers. Please try it out and let us know.

We are working on adding more browser icons. Thank you for your patience

</comment><comment> john-n We used something similar for our support requests, a helpful piece to add may ad block. You can check if ad block is on by trying to load some js on a path with usual ad block triggers.

</comment><comment><USER66> It accurately detected that I'm running Safari on OS/2. Pretty great!

<https://aboutmybrowser.com/4004112543>

(Actually, Chrome os iOS, but close enough.)

</comment><comment><USER67> I noticed that it's not at all fazed by user agent spoofing. Nice.

</comment><comment><USER68> I would rather ask people to send their inquires through my "contact us" form, wherein I could collect all the data I need. Much less confusing to the user, me thinks...

</comment><comment><USER69> The screen size vs monitor size looks incorrect <https://aboutmybrowser.com/3056072335>

I'm browsing on a second monitor

<comment><USER70> I think this is more a function of the browser reporting things poorly in the header. Perhaps some client side javascript can help here?

My multi monitor setup reports even wilder results: <https://aboutmybrowser.com/1708443426>

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> For me, this site is currently quite useless. It merely shows:

"We're sorry, but something went wrong."

Is it a bug in the browser recognition, or is the site simply down due to its exposure to HN?

<comment><AUTHOR> It currently shows this page if it cant parse the user agent. Can you post the url with the error? It would help us debug.

<comment><USER72> <https://aboutmybrowser.com/2605932122>

This is an error page and I am requesting the page using Chrome (18.0.1025123) on Android ICS (4.0.4 on a Galaxy Nexus).

Something to note - if i check the "request desktop site" setting in chrome it seems to work, but that may be because chrome pretends to be running on linux in that case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> nice idea. found it a bit annoying that I had to scroll to get some details that could easily sit above the fold.....i recognise the need for some sort of virality and share-ability, and also that the idea is users will send tech support the link, but perhaps it could be tempered a little and you could push some important details above the fold - for example browser and browser version and javascript on or off.

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the feedback. We have gotten this feedback from others as well and we will be improving the layout shortly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> lynx -dump <http://aboutmybrowser.com> We're sorry, but something went wrong.

Really, guys? It's mothereffing lynx!

<comment><USER75> Actual site is down I think. I got that error in chrome on android.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> I'm definitely going to keep an eye on this one ;) Looks a touch incomplete now but I'll bet it gets a good deal more useful as time goes on.

</comment><comment><USER77> Not a criticism at all but what is the point of this?

This is a genuine question, I have no idea why this seems important/interesting enough to be No 1 on HN.

What am I missing?

<comment><USER78> I take it you've never done support or tried to fix a users issue?

Trying to find out what browser and version a user has can often be like pulling teeth if they're not an experienced internet users; being able to link them to a page and get all the info you need without a miscommunication is a godsend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> Findmebyip.com <http://fmbip.com/get-started/> is a lot more full featured, I think.

</comment><comment><USER80> Can you add the info about Flash Player too? Like this: <http://playerversion.com/>

</comment><comment><USER81> I find it interesting that Flash is detected even with FlashBlock enabled. It seems that the add-on only prevents its display.

<comment><USER82> I noticed that in Chrome too, but with 'click to play' turned on for plugins in the preferences... Not sure if it's a good or bad thing actually, since I'd rather sites assume I'm displaying flash so that I can continue blocking the flash content they want to show me, rather than them displaying it via other means.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> It doesn't differentiate between the various versions of chrome. Chromium, for example has no Google nonsense in it.

</comment><comment><USER84> <http://supportdetails.com/> still more useful, but nice work.

</comment><comment><USER85> Great! Java detection would be a really nice feature. Further detail in OS versions would be pretty useful as well.

</comment><comment><USER86> <http://www.whatismybrowser.com/> is nicer looking.

</comment><comment><USER87> Doesn't work properly. My OS is FreeBSD, site says my "OS Type" would be Linux. Should be Unix or BSD instead.

</comment><comment><USER88> Great idea. I lost the count to the number of times I had to ask this question. This will really help a lot.

</comment><comment> tech-no-logical The 'javascript : true' is redundant as this doesn't work with javascript disabled. Other than that : nice.

<comment><USER89> Actually I visited it with Javascript disable. Saw the note about details needing JS, smiled in anticipation of Javascript being used to sniff details, got "javascript: false". I think they save the results but use JS to display only (bleh...).

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> Please could you make it so it uses normal scrollbars? Fucking with the scrollbars often breaks stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> We are using normal scrollbars. Can you post a screenshot?

<comment><USER90> Ah, apologies! I posted that on the wrong topic, I meant to post it about that ivory thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER91> Now if there was an easy way of showing a user where the address bar is so they can type it in...

</comment><comment><USER92> Can you internationalize the texts?

</comment><comment><USER93> Great idea.

Would be brilliant if it ran the browser through a battery of capability tests (like HTML5test.com).

</comment><comment><USER94> White label it for web developers.

<comment><USER10> I think I know what you mean but can you explain your idea? Just the domain or some added functionality? API?

<comment><USER94> Branded, possibly sub-domains, etc. So it looks like a tool their business created for their clients.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> It correctly reports Firefox on NetBSD for me but also shows "OS Type: Linux".

</comment><comment><USER96> Is it really telling me that my stock android browser is safari on mac osx?

</comment><comment><USER97> FWIW, some information is not showing up for Metro IE10.

</comment><comment><USER98> Tried it with Conkeror on Linux:

"We're sorry, but something went wrong."

</comment><comment><USER99> This is certainly helpful, thanks for sharing this.

</comment><comment><USER100> Android info also doesn't show up...

</comment><comment><USER46> nice one. simple but very useful when you are dealing with non-tech users.

</comment><comment><USER101> Reports webOS incorrectly.

</comment><comment><USER102> Love it!

</comment><comment><USER103> omg thank you

</comment><comment><USER104> great initiative. very useful.

</comment><comment><USER105> cool stuff.

</comment><comment><USER106> 500 Errors:

Lynx on Linux: <https://aboutmybrowser.com/1909674851>

w3m on Linux: <https://aboutmybrowser.com/1942341369>

links on Linux: <https://aboutmybrowser.com/3183933151>

elinks on Linux: <https://aboutmybrowser.com/3918182904>

Also, it works just fine on Firefox with NoScript blocking JavaScript from your site.

<comment><USER107> Didn't work on Android with native browser for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER108> How many people don't know what browser they are using or OS? Pretty easy to find out.

<comment><USER109> LOTS (they don't read HN)

</comment></comment><comment><USER110> Woefully incomplete - you aren't even exploring navigator.plugins, installed fonts, DOM storage settings, etc.

[https://panopticlick.eff.org/index.php?action=log&js=yes](https://panopticlick.eff.org/index.php?action=log&js=yes)

<comment><USER111> It's this kind of negativity I wish I never read on Show HN threads. Woeful? Seriously? _Deplorably bad or wretched_ [1]? It's an MVP of an interesting concept and this is how you respond?

1\. <http://www.thefreedictionary.com/woefully>

<comment><USER78> I thought ck2 was joking because the one he linked includes _everything_ and was designed to show just how information you leak; not to exist as a way to quickly get a users info.

Maybe not, though.</comment></comment></comment>