K
Karl Dubost
otsukare.info · Personal blog · on HN since 2014
Karl Dubost works on web compatibility at Mozilla and writes about browser user agent strings, devtools history, and compatibility bugs.
What HN saysHN links it for posts on capping the macOS user agent string, a list of Google web compatibility bugs in Firefox, and a devtools timeline.
16HN people shared it
6linked it in comments
18stories submitted
68story points
1 year agolast shared
2014people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Capping macOS User Agent String on macOS 114 people · 5 points · first shared 2021 · 1 comments on HN
- 2List of Google Web Compatibility Bugs on Firefox3 people · 6 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
- 3Encyclopedia of broken UserAgent string detections2 people · 15 points · first shared 2022 · 3 comments on HN
- 4Browser Wish List – Tabs and bookmarks are the same thing2 people · 4 points · first shared 2021 · 1 comments on HN
- 5Browser Developer Tools Timeline2 people · 3 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 6Vendor Prefixes and Market Reality1 people · 24 points · first shared 2015 · 4 comments on HN
- 7How to Make «Cidre» of Normandy1 people · 3 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 8Get Ready for Three Digit User Agent Strings1 people · 2 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 9More roads and faster browsers1 people · 2 points · first shared 2018 · 1 comments on HN
- 10Vendor Prefixes and Market Reality1 people · 1 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
- 11User Experience on Fail or Block1 people · 1 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 12Quirks, Site Interventions and Fixing Websites1 people · 1 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 13Site Interventions and Automated Testing1 people · 1 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 14Capping user agent string1 people · first shared 2021
What HN people wrote when they linked it
freediver · 2021-08-19
Follow up meeting discussion:
https://www.otsukare.info/2021/03/02/capping-user-agent-string
bzbarsky · 2014-10-28
http://www.otsukare.info/2014/10/28/google-webcompatibility-bugs-list has a more complete rundown of the still-extant issues in case you're interested. The whole post is well worth reading, because it does say something important that needs to be said: there are many individuals at Google who believe in things like interoperability, web sites working in all browsers, etc, and strive for that (sometimes against internal opposition). It just happens that Google as an overall organization cares a lot more about its sites working in Chrome than it cares about them working in other browsers, with predictable results.
leptons · 2025-08-18
>Firebug brought the concept to existence in the first place.
There were other browser "dev tools" before firebug.
https://www.otsukare.info/2020/08/06/browser-devtools-timeline
auscompgeek · 2022-12-30
Mozilla froze the macOS version in User-Agent strings past Catalina too, also due to web compatibility issues (particularly with older versions of the Unity game engine).
Other engines do the same as well: https://www.otsukare.info/2021/02/15/capping-macos-user-agent
Siecje · 2017-11-08
This is a problem with Google only making things work with Chrome. http://www.otsukare.info/2014/10/28/google-webcompatibility-bugs-list
dbcooper · 2014-10-28
There are a few google related ones in Karl Dubost's list:
http://www.otsukare.info/2014/10/28/google-webcompatibility-bugs-list