Post #2425682

2026-04-01 09:55 UTC

@noratrieb@hachyderm.io while most of what you have said is true, if the messaging is to remain, it needs some nuance adding about what the cause of the error actually is as it's currently factually wrong. I disagree that the client (the User Agent, in this case the browser) is "part of the website".

Replies (1)

@noratrieb@hachyderm.io 2026-04-01 09:58

@fooflington@infosec.exchange If there's a 403, the user agent is definitely not buggy. It was likely instructed to perform something invalid by the website, like with a dead link, or a normal link that leads to a page where the server is misconfigured. For a dead link, the problem is not that the browser made the invalid request, but that there was a dead link on a website. The people responsible for fixing the issue are the website operators. For users that don't understand HTTP, it does not matter what the exact cause was, whether their browser was directed to an incorrect page or whether the server has a bug. For website operators the nuance is of course very important, that's why HTTP has it. But for users? it's really not

Open ##2425683