Ask HN: Why doesn't Wikipedia redirect from mobile links to desktop? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why doesn't Wikipedia redirect from mobile links to desktop?

14 pointsonychomys9 comments

If you're on a non-mobile device, this link:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon

will open in mobile format. But getting the user agent is trivial, and so wiki should be able to easily redirect to this on a non-mobile device:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon

But they don't, and since they're one of the most-visited sites in the world, I assume there's some really good reason why they don't bother. Anybody know why that might be? Is there some sort of esoteric security thing that sites have to worry about? Do they just not want to have to do the work of serving one page and then immediately switching to the other? Or is it something else entirely?

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I'm glad they don't. I much prefer the mobile layout, even on desktop.

I agree, but btw, if you sign in you can set your theme to MinervaNeue to get a mobile-like layout on regular pages.

Well in my view they are servicing you the page you requested. If you want to go to an other link, you can always edit it. And it is especially easy on PCs. I really dislike editing URLs on my phone.

And BTW have you observed what kind of user agents browsers are spouting? Firefox claims to be Opera, Opera is Chrome etc. But umm this kind of offtopic, when it comes to a desktop/laptop/tablet/phablet/phone distinction.

> Well in my view they are servicing you the page you requested.

Except they don’t, at least not for the reverse. Trying to access the desktop equivalent on mobile, they force a redirect to their mobile (en.m.wikipedia…) page.

What's the deal with browser's user agent definitions? Why are they so wack.

if my users chose to visit asa mobile device rather than a desktop device, thats not a problem; but i would view taking that decision away because "user doesnt know whats good", as a bad move.

in the case you have illustrated, a user can cut or paste the ".m." into the URL at will

I think the problem is enough new to be unnoticed. It is so because a phone begs mobile version but a PC does not care. Another question from that basket is how to tell websites from mobile device that I do not want their app and what to do if website promotes it agressively.

I generally use uBlock Origin to delete the "download yet another goddamn app!" nag-boxes.

I do not use a smartphone but from what I know some websites really persist in promoting their app unless faking user agent. uBlock can not do much if a backend doesn't give you anything except preview. Like when you go to Quora from Google search and it displays the question you have found but does not display any other question, unless you search that other question in Google too.

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