Anigozanthos

Not that Opera have released version 10 (yet!), but it looks like at least one site is going to reject Opera when they do. And where there's one site, no doubt there's hundreds of others Thankfully, a quick search doesn't quickly turn up anything similar, although there are plenty of other bad examples.

Anyway, here's the problem code:

if (navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase().indexOf("opera") != -1)
{
   isOpera = true;
   i = navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Opera") + 6;
   v = parseInt(navigator.userAgent.substring(i, i+1));
   if(v < 7)
      isOperaOld = true;
}

Need a clue? The substring will return exactly one character - the first digit of the version. Still need help? Version 10 will be identified as version 1.

If you're one of those people irritated at how poorly Opera appears to handle web site scripting - this is one of the bigger reasons. It's straight-out careless programming without thought.

I'll mention that the site in question isn't delivering bugs to just Opera. Their corresponding IE code had the exact same problem, except that IE is quite a bit further away from version 10 than Opera.

The problem remains for Opera:

1. Opera release version 10.
2. Web sites stop working in Opera, all other browsers work fine.
3. "Opera is a crappy browser, never works!"

Yet, where is the bug? What should Opera do about it? Never release a browser with a version where the first digit is between zero and six inclusive? Will the Opera after 9.5 be 70.0?

UPDATE: Bit late, but Hallvord has blogged on this too: 10 is the one.