Chrome pretends it's Safari to hoodwink Hotmail

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 30 Jan 2009 at 08:14

Google has found a novel workaround to a bug that stopped its Chrome browser working with Microsoft's Hotmail - it's pretending to be Apple's Safari.

Previous versions of the Google browser refused to even open Hotmail messages, while users of Yahoo Mail couldn't send messages.

The latest version 1.0.154.46 of Chrome spoofs the browser's user agent string when visiting the Hotmail domain, fooling the webmail service into thinking it's Safari. Google Chrome and Safari are both built on the same WebKit platform.

In our brief tests this morning, Chrome now appears to open and send Hotmail messages.

The Google Chrome Releases blog rather high-handedly comments that the workaround will remain in place until "the Hotmail team works on a proper fix".

Chrome users can update to the latest version by clicking on About Google Chrome in the tools menu and clicking the update button.