browsers and an app think I'm on a very old OS, which I'm not

Question

browsers and an app think I'm on a very old OS, which I'm not

Hello all.

Yesterday, the BBC iPlayer Downloads app started displaying the message: 'Downloads will stop working on your device soon'. It said the reason is that my operating system won't be supported. This is odd, given the fact that I use Monterey (the app supports Mac OS 10 and younger). I thought it was a BBC glitch, but then today, when signing in on Etsy after a long time, I got their standard 'was this you?' security e-mail, that showed my device as: 'Device: Safari 15 on Mac OS X 10'. What?! So apparently, since yesterday, three browsers (I tested the Etsy login thing on Safari, Chrome and Firefox) and an app think I'm on an OS dating back to 2001?

I'd love for this to be Apple's April Fools joke, but I'm guessing it's not.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Chantal

iMac 21.5″ 4K, macOS 12.2

Posted on Apr 3, 2022 8:18 AM

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Answer 1

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,102 points

Apr 3, 2022 8:40 AM in response to Chantal van der Ende-Appel

Apple stopped supplying the correct browser and OS version in the HTML request (the information is sent when making a web request). I think they just left it as some version of Catalina.

The only reason I can imagine they did that is because hackers can use the information to decide which attacks are viable against those OS and browser versions.

I'm not sure why FireFox or Chrome would be doing the same thing unless the browser gets the info from the OS.

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Answer 2

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,102 points

Apr 4, 2022 9:11 PM in response to Chantal van der Ende-Appel

An actual application doesn’t get version information from the HTML user-agent string. Contact the developer about the issue with their software.

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Answer 3

Apr 4, 2022 1:00 AM in response to Barney-15E

The BBC iPlayer Downloads app isn't a web app though, accessed through a browser; it's an actual installed app.

If the app gets the information from my system that I'm on OS 10 and the app doesn't support anything older than 10.3, their message that it'll stop soon makes sense. But that would be outrageous - for me to not be able to use an app because it thinks I'm on al older OS when I'm not! I'm thinking I should open a support ticket, because this is ridiculous.

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Answer 4

Apr 3, 2022 9:07 AM in response to Barney-15E

Thank you for your reply.

The BBC iPlayer Downloads app supports Catalina from 10.3, it says. So if they think I'm on 10, that would fit.

But... this blows my mind.

I can't follow your hacker-reasoning, but I mean... if apps think I'm on Catalina, at some point those apps (clearly!) are going to tell me they don't support it anymore. So at some point, they'll have to at least go to 11, right? Right?!

(Btw, I typed 2001, when obviously OS 10 isn't from 2001, that was a type. But I can't change my original text. Apparently, one can't edit or delete questions?! That is just as odd, annoying even, as the original issue...)

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Answer 5

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,102 points

Apr 3, 2022 2:41 PM in response to Chantal van der Ende-Appel

The web apps shouldn’t ever use that HTML User-Agent string to restrict anything. At most, they can alter the page layout using tweaks for specific browsers, but being that string is not mandatory as to content, they would be idiots to deny access due to the content. At most they should inform you that the website isn’t optimized for your browser with a, “yeah, I don’t care” button to opt out of the warnings.

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browsers and an app think I'm on a very old OS, which I'm not

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