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Firefox = AOL IM - Why ?

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Firefox = AOL IM - Why ? - 4.Aug.2005 10:16:00 PM

Guest

I'm the admin at a private girls school. We have had an issue with instant messaging, so I have been working on blocking it. Before coming here I was given at least a dozen different methods that other schools swear blind work, but none of them seem to do anything. Finally I stumbled across this site, and have been able to configure the HTTP filters to stop the IM plague. But, as soon as the filters were applied, Firefox stopped being able to access the internet. The monitor shows denied against that rule for any FF traffic. So one by one I disabled the new filters, and have been able to narrow it down to the AOL IM filter. The settings for it are

Request Headers
User-Agent:
Gecko/

For some reason, this is how ISA is seeing FF as well. Has anyone else seen this behaviour or have an laternative. Thankfully, AOL IM doesn't seem to be used here, so I can leave it open for the moment. But I would love to get some feedback on why this is the case.

Cheers,

Greg

Post #: 1

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RE: Firefox = AOL IM - Why ? - 5.Aug.2005 6:48:00 AM

tshinder

Posts: 50013
Joined: 10.Jan.2001
From: Texas
Status: offline

Hi SMS,

I don't use FF and don't recommend it for usability and management reasons, but you can do a NetMon trace to determine the host headers.

HTH,
Tom

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Post #: 2

RE: Firefox = AOL IM - Why ? - 6.Aug.2005 1:33:00 AM

Guest

For students and staff, IE is the default browser. Unfortunately, it is also a gateway to spyware and other problems, even with protection and good intentions. I use FF because it is as stable and vastly more usable than IE as far as I am concerned, but each to their own.

I will look into the headers futher to try and see why there is this odd confusion.

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Post #: 3

RE: Firefox = AOL IM - Why ? - 7.Aug.2005 2:03:00 AM

Guest

Well, using the Ethereal sniffer has shown that within the header string for FF is Gecko/ It is only a small part of the string, but obviously enough to trip ISA'a http filter. Here's hoping our userbase doesn't realise that AOL is a hole in the wall for the moment.

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Post #: 4

RE: Firefox = AOL IM - Why ? - 16.Aug.2005 10:26:00 AM

tinto

Posts: 247
Joined: 9.Sep.2004
From: Italy
Status: offline

quote:
Originally posted by <SMS Admin>:
Request Headers
User-Agent:
Gecko/

Gecko is the name of the rendering engine.
Try to upgrade to lastest FF first, then...

type in url bar of FF
about:config
you can here change the user agent string.
maybe you will lose your changes after restarting FF and so you have to find for configuration file and write in it.
Or just search for one of dozens utility that allows you to manage Firefox [Wink]

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Post #: 5

RE: Firefox = AOL IM - Why ? - 16.Aug.2005 10:30:00 AM

tinto

Posts: 247
Joined: 9.Sep.2004
From: Italy
Status: offline

quote:
Originally posted by tshinder:
I don't use FF and don't recommend it for usability and management reasons

I strongly recommend you to reevaluate it [Wink]

because first of all it strongly respects Web standards while IE doesn't and because it's much more manegeable and SAFE than IE.

I actually use IE only for Windows Update and for poor programmed sites that work only with IE.

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Post #: 6