[WEB4LIB] RE: Mozilla support at university libraries and com puti

[george at library.caltech.edu]

Thomas Dowling suggested the Kluwer and Lippincott Williams Wilkins ejournal
problem could be due to 3rd party cookies.  Testing with IE6 and Opera
confirmed those browsers can be configured to forgive egregiously sloppy
security design.  I'm apparently less forgiving, particularly when Kluwer
posts instructions for IE6 [there is only one browser!] security changes
<http://ipsapp007.lwwonline.com/ips/nocookies.asp>.  The claim that "... LWW
Online is Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) 1.0 compliant ..." is
particularly incredible, since Kluwer/LWW are the only online journal
publisher (in my not inconsiderable experience) which mandates acceptance of
3rd party cookies.

A little more research, prompted by Jeff Kuntzman's note about the
JavaScript difficulties with Exchange Server using Mozilla under Win2K.
Operating system is not a determinant, at least on the browser end of the
equation.  

Not being a JavaScript expert, I sincerely doubt I could fix either
Mozilla's interpreter or Microsoft's server code.  Worse still, the
JavaScript incompatibilities prevent Mozilla-based access to Korea Polymer
Journal
<http://www.polymer.or.kr/publications/jour/year.php?jourid=11&jname=Korea%2
0Polym.%20J.> and its successor, Macromolecular Research
<http://www.polymer.or.kr/publications/jour/year.php?jourid=458&jname=Macrom
ol.%20Res.>.

Strict, standards-compliant browsers versus the bloat, cruft, hacks, and
slop that have permeated programming and web service designs for the last 7
years...

I'll stick by my original statement -- I'm recommending that it be used to
replace Netscape on the library's public workstations in the next build.  On
the other hand, there has been, and will continue to be at least 2 browsers
on all of the workstations.

George S. Porter
Sherman Fairchild Library of Engineering & Applied Science
Caltech, 1-43
Pasadena, CA  91125-4300
Telephone (626) 395-3409 Fax (626) 431-2681