www.bahn.de/buchung isn't working—or is it?

[Fenchelina]

The Deutsche Bahn website is always a source of problems. In recent weeks, the timetable search function www.bahn.de/buchung/start?intern=1 has stopped working with Palemoon because the displayed options couldn't be modified: When you click for example on the “Hinfahrt ändern” section, an overlay with a calendar should open. In Palemoon, the area is outlined in blue and the rest of the page is dimmed to gray.

falscheAnzeige.jpg

So I tried out the new version to see if anything had changed. Unfortunately, nothing had changed in the standard version — but strangely enough, it was working on one computer!

korrekte Anzeige.jpg

To figure out what the difference was, I disabled all the add-ons in this installation. The calendar still loads. Only in safe mode it did not.
A comparison of the modified entries in about:config did not provide any clues. The only likely explanation: The general.useragent.compatMode.firefox setting was set to “false” on the Palemoon that was working, and to “true” on the other computer (as is default). Unfortunately, I can't verify this, because for some reason, it seems that changes no longer can be made to this particular entry — neither double-clicking nor using the context menu works to change the value.
So how do I get Palemoon to display the Deutsche Bahn website correctly? Apparently, it’s capable of doing so.

[andyprough]

The general.useragent.compatMode.firefox setting was set to “false” on the Palemoon that was working, and to “true” on the other computer (as is default). Unfortunately, I can't verify this, because for some reason, it seems that changes no longer can be made to this particular entry — neither double-clicking nor using the context menu works to change the value.

That configuration is set from the Preferences menu. Tools - Preferences - Advanced - General tab - set User Agent Mode to "Native", "Gecko Compatibility", or "Firefox Compatibility". You can watch the about:config preference change in real time as you make the change in the Preferences menu.

[adoxa]

When you click for example on the “Hinfahrt ändern” section, an overlay with a calendar should open. In Palemoon, the area is outlined in blue and the rest of the page is dimmed to gray.

Press End.

So I tried out the new version to see if anything had changed. Unfortunately, nothing had changed in the standard version — but strangely enough, it was working on one computer!

Changing agent did nothing for me; maybe it has the userstyle?

[Fenchelina]

Ok, so it was the “dom.dialog_element.enabled” entry. (That’s why I don’t really like these kinds of workarounds: later on, you can’t remember what you changed and where.)

So this solution would only help until the next hurdle on the DB-site anyway.
That's too bad. I was really hoping this update would have made a significant improvement to Palmoon's compatibility.

[Moonchild]

I was really hoping this update would have made a significant improvement to Palmoon's compatibility.

It has. just because the website you check still has issues doesn't mean nothing has changed. And as long as websites keep following daddy Chrome with continual updates to their code and never just settling on something for a longer time (does a railway booking portal really need to use bleeding edge APIs all the time?... Are they telling us that their portal sucks so much each iteration that they must absolutely chase the latest draft specs because otherwise it doesn't fulfil its task of giving visitors a way to book trains? What did users do 2 years ago? Were they not also using bahn.de?...) I think you can see where I'm going with this.

[moonbat]

does a railway booking portal really need to use bleeding edge APIs all the time?.

Or any regular site for that matter. As I've often said, Chrome is just an employment guarantee scheme for web devs at this point

[andyprough]

Or any regular site for that matter. As I've often said, Chrome is just an employment guarantee scheme for web devs at this point

Google is the richest advertising company in the history of the world, based entirely on their ability to track nearly everyone and track their preferences online. So everything they do should be looked at through that lens - "how does this help Google to track people's preferences and sell their data and sell more ads?" But this is one thing I don't fully grok - if everything Google does has an ad selling angle at its core, what's the ad selling angle for pushing a constantly shifting, always unstable pile of non-standard web technologies? It almost seems like it makes their job harder to dominate advertising to not promote a stable base of internet technologies to sling ads from. Are there tracking technologies that get deeply embedded in the weird web technologies that they promote?

[moonbat]

It maintains Chrome's dominance, already browser engines other than Blink are a tiny minority. The endgame is to turn the browser into a VM for remote applications, with Google controlling the whole stack. No more open web (already the general public has been trained to go on proprietary silos for everything). And It's wild how all the lawsuits against them keep focusing on search when that's the least monopolistic thing they have. Swiitching search engines is trivial compared to the network effects applicable to their other services and especially their browser dominance.

[Moonchild]

There is one specific angle to ensuring Chrome's absolute dominance for advertising by the same company: Any user on chrome vs. a different browser means no revenue share has to be paid based on that user's traffic. By staying within the Google/Chrome ecosystem of services and applications, 100% of search/ad revenue flows directly to Google instead of split between Google and a third party browser. That half a billion Mozilla gets annually for their search partnership? If that traffic goes to Chrome, that's half a billion saved. So there is absolutely an angle there.

[moonbat]

That half a billion Mozilla gets annually for their search partnership? If that traffic goes to Chrome, that's half a billion saved.

If there were no Firefox, Google would invite antitrust lawsuits like the ones Microsoft faced over IE. So Mozilla is just funded as controlled opposition.

[Moonchild]

Yes, for Google it'd be the "cost of doing business" But you can always keep pushing that controlled opposition lower and lower as long as there is the appearance of opposition, especially if Mozilla keeps telling their twisted truths about being non-profit.

[walmar]

Basically how it is when one company acquires another: reduction and subordination. In this case, however, it is — for certain reasons — less obvious to the general public. I think we are all curious to see exactly what this latest step toward integrating an ad blocker entails.