Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

Earlier this month there was another flap between MSN and Opera. Now Opera responds with Opera 7 Bork Edition. (Also see Google Bork.)

Sometime last year the first flap came when MSN simply blocked Opera users and displayed text about Opera not supporting Internet standards and therefore not compatible with MSN.com. That crock was quickly revealed (the crock being MSN picking on ANYONE for non standards compliance much less fully compliant Opera) and due to public outcry MSN aplogized and stopped the underhanded tactic.

This latest issue is that when users of the new Opera 7 visit MSN then get a wacked stylesheet that Opera purports was done on purpose by MSN to make Opera look bad. This stylesheet is mysteriously sent to "unknown" browsers, including Opera (unknown?, thats also a crock to claim that Opera is unknown). MSN says of course that it was accidental that a.) Opera was identified as other and b.) the other stylesheet did not work (it turns out that Opera works great on MSN if you change the user agent to IE or Netscape, either of those stylesheets, which are different, work fine).

SO Opera has fired back with a new version of Opera 7 that "borks" MSN on purpose. They do state that this is a joke but it is also to point out the serious nature of companies not being able to interoperate and use standards based on rivalries. The underhanded nature of Microsofts actions (or potentially underhanded, it could actually be an honest mistake, again, right?) is very alarming, but Opera responds in style.

Check our more via the links.   Opera says "bork" to MSN standards: news.com