Revamped Hotmail not working with Linux
 

Hello,

Has anyone seen the new revamped version of www.hotmail.com? It's not bad to look at it, but it's totally useless to work with, I cannot write an email!

If I reply of starts a new email, I can change subject, To, CC and that stuff, but the body of the email, the section where you write your txt, it is disabled! You cannot even click to put your cursor.

I have tried with Firefox 2 and 3, 2 different versions of distro, KDE3.5, KDE4, 32bits and 64bits and also with Konqueror and I get the same problem (it's even worse in Konqueror).

Anyone is able at all to write an email on www.hotmail.com from a Linux distro?

Hopefully Microcrap hasn't found a way to disable writing mails from a linux distro, that would be attacking the opensource world and totally against the basics of constant smart and wise evolution. lollll :p

tnx

As much as I would love to see Hotmail start blocking Linux, it just hasn't happened. I just opened an account with Live and sent myself several test messages. I am using Firefox 3.0 and it gave me no trouble at all. I repeated this test using Ubuntu 8.10, Linux Mint and Mandriva. So it clearly isn't a problem with Linux.

Make sure you don't have java blocked and give another try.

Yeah my Java is enabled, but I wonder if it's using a new type of plugin that I might not have by default. In KDE4 32bits Firefox 3 asked to install a new java plugin. Didn't solve the problem.

I will check deeper, if it's not related to Linux it's related to something I did not yet install or configure correctly.

tnx for the tests!

It's working for me. You could try to re-install your browser and try again.

Debian Kernel

Hmmm... Not easy. I have tried Firefox 2, Konqueror, Opera, SeaMonkey and Epiphany and they all cannot enable the body of message to write txt. I discovered I succeeded once with Opera, but the other links (sign out, etc.) were not working, it worked once and that's it. After enabling Java, which disables by itself all the time.

I tried installing different versions and architectures (64bits and 32bits) of JRE1.5 and JRE1.6 with JRE1.5 browser plug-in and 1.6 browser plug-in and I could not make it. It seemed to have helped konqueror, which was the worse before, but the body of message, where you can select font color, size etc, is still disabled.

Trying a different version of opensuse (11.0 32-bits KDE4 with Firefox 3) did not help at all. So it's not browser related. It's not distro related, it's not GUI related, it's not version related.

It must be java related, but I have tried all the ones I could think of, the other java stuff I don't know what they are, so I have not installed. I must be missing some kind of plug-in in my whole distro.

If anyone has an idea, or the same prob as I do and finds a solution (what is the missing package), feel free to let me know.
tnx

same problem
 

I was able to use hotmail 'till yesterday. Now it's same as described by OP. I think MS rolled out some new "improvements" in different areas in different time. It might be related to to server to which we are trying to connect. I will try to work around, maybe IE4inux help?

cheers TJ

Who is "OP"?

IE4linux?? Didn't know it was existing, but I have found it on google. I will give a try too, as I could not find anything to work around this hotmail site.

Looks like I need wine for that. Will give a try soon.

tnx for the tip.

The OP are you :p

OP stands for Original Poster, the one who wrote the first post in a given thread.

It's a script that makes easy the installation of IE6 under linux, so you can use it (with wine) on linux.

Hey Guys - I still don't know how to make hotmail to work with FireFox but I have just tested it with IE4Linux (IE v.6) and it works :-) I'm not happy to use MS product but... What else I can do? Hard to say I'm new to GNU/Linux word, I could rather say that MS is new to Hotmail for I've been using the same e-mail address since 1995. Way before when MS bought them...
Cheers to every one TJ

What else can you do?

Stop using hotmail.

Serious statement; stop using it. M$ wants to own you, and tracks you all around the web. When you go to hotmail you also go to passport, where information is collected about you.

One of the real joys of not browsing using M$ software is that this privacy attack, at least, is neutralized.

Well I stand corrected! There is a problem with the user agent not being MS on Hotmail. I see this as another maniacal attempt to force people to stay within the grasp of M$. http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/...with_firefox_2

Has a long rant and then a possible fix. However, I for one would immediately assert my independence by setting up a transfer in Hotmail and opening a Google Account. Both Google and Yahoo mail are superior to hotmail in every category.

Now is the time for change! Welcome to the free world!

We all know the answer to that question. Actually, hotmail is probably the worst mail accounts provider ever. And has and "amazing security record".

I can't understand why would anyone use a service that limits your connectivity in such ways. After all, the whole point of webmail is that you can use it from anywhere with just a web browser, without the need to use a mail client and configure it, which is often not true with hotmail.

Let's confess it, people don't migrate not because there aren't featureful alternatives, nor because they don't know about them, nor even because "oh, well, I've been using X for years and don't feel like migrating". They don't migrate just because they are lazy to bother a couple of minutes to do so. Period.

Maybe, but people also move home, and still receive the regular mail without problems. People change the phone number, and people locate them without problems. Really, it's not that hard to make a list and send the same mail with a notification to all the people you know. After that, you can continue using both accounts during a period, before you migrate completely. Nothing last forever, it's just that MS likes when you think so.

Another "fix" is to browse through privoxy, and specify the user-agent on a per-site basis. Privoxy will send any user-agent string you tell it to send, so you could just go to hotmail claiming to be some version of IE.

Best choice is to just ditch hotmail.

@ jiml8, yes, you are right there. I checked one more option, which happened to be easiest one. IF you aye using FireFox type in address line: about:config and when all those nice configuration options shows up put in filter word "agent". Than find "general.useragent.vendor" and whatever is set as string there (it be distro you're running) change to Firefox. Reset browser and you are done.
You are right about to ditch hotmail. I'll do it very soon. But there is one more thing - if we start to avoid some highways because of puddle holes, so road maintenance ppl might assume that there is no need to repair it for there is not much traffic...

I try not to argue with OPs over why they want to do something, but in this situation....

Even Yahoo is better than MS when it comes to webmail. That is saying something.

Gmail isn't perfect, but it's a damn sight closer.

(And at poster above - nah, it just shows companies that we care about good products, and that they can't keep making proprietary crap and expecting the masses to go along with it. Do send a shout to MS about this, though. Not that they'll listen.)

IF the company that runs the road discriminates against you for driving on their road in a chevrolet rather than a ford, then you should avoid the highway anyway, and hope enough people avoid the highway that the company goes out of business.

Glad I found this. I have the same problem, but I found it this morning when I was unable to use Thunderbird to access my hotmail account. Working at 2345 last night, failed at 0645 this morning. No changes on my system. Time to take the leap and tell all the people who have been using my hotmail address for the last 12 years that I am now on gmail.

The thing about mail clients is even more aberrant.

I don't know why can't they just provide a standard pop or imap interface like everyone else does. It's just another example on how they really don't care about accessibility because, well, after all, the world is theirs, and they have no need to provide a way to interact with any third party product at all.

I can't help thinking that they have shot themselves in the foot. How long until someone writes and spreads a script that changes the value of general.useragent.vendor to something that Hotmail won't accept. And if it can be done in Firefox etc, how about i.e.

I can't even forward email to another account outside Microsoft -

"You're only able to forward mail to a custom domain or an e-mail address that ends in hotmail.com, msn.com, or live.com. Please try again." comes up when I try to forward to Gmail.

"You can forward your mail to one other e-mail address that ends in hotmail.com, msn.com, live.com, or is part of Windows Live Custom Domains"

Great

Not strange.

They don't ease the interaction with 3rd party products, why would they ease the migration at all? :p

Those jerks...
 

I've been noticing this for several days now.

I need to get off hotmail too. Maybe I'll set up my own mail server... hmm...

I've had a Hotmail account for 10 years, but this is the last straw. It's been an inferior service for many years now.

I finally got it to work.
thanks everyone!

//s

So what did you do? I am having the same problem. I did read something about chaning useragents but I do not know how to do that.

Any help would be appreicated.

I have had hotmail for 9 years now.

More reason for people to switch to slackware! mine works just fine!... I honestly could never make heads or tails of the web interfaces of any of the webmails... that's why I use pop3 feature of gmail.

I would like to ditch hotmail, but doing so I lose contact (chatting) of all my friends using the msn network, this is why I still have my 10yo hotmail address. Unless I can use another provider like yahoo or gmail that can connect to the msn network? I'll have to check.

My 10yo account got revamped totally on the visual side. My few months old account, used for testing purposes to test emesene, my linux msn client, has not been revamped, still the old blue-like visuals. So not all accounts have moved. They changed some java or flash stuff certainly. Hard to make them work. Linspire 6 has all the support straight out of the box (but we know this distro is sold, not free, it includes more packages like plugins). Kubuntu 8.10, openSUSE 10.3, 11.0, 11.1, gnome or kde, PCLinuxOS, Fedora9, they all do not support by default the new java or flash hotmail uses. I did not find which plugin it is, but I know it's a plugin.

Just stop using Hotmail for mail. Switch to Gmail, and use whatever IM app with your Hotmail username ;)

Wow, that did the trick right on! Incredible how ONE single word can do all the difference.

tnx! :)

Hey Guys - funny thing is that Novell has a deal with MS :-) and still Hotmail and other services don't work on Suse. Right now my ISP i Sympatico.ca, and guess what - they are sitting on top of MS - it means all their web services are build around MS products. I thing Sympatico is not only one like that in world. I can't even use "chat" if I had problems with mi Internet :-) Midnight dealers, thats what they are :-)

cheers TJ

Darn!!!
 

Yeah I have (had) the same hassle on OpenSuSE 11 using KDE4. I tried everything. Eventually I blew the install away (including web server, steam server, ftp etc... :( ) The wife uses this rig as her interweb machine, and sadly... a hotmail devotee. I installed Linux Mint to no evail, Slackware, Ubuntu and RHEL all failed to compose and email,and yet my EeePC with the Xandros install has no hassles at all??? Couldnot compose under seamonkey, konquerer or firefox... This is a coding issue...coders???

I have migrated the wifes email and contacts to our hosted provider and set up a forwarding rule in hotmail.

My advice is to leave the Redmond, California USA mail client as quickly as your little fingers can type. I for one am glad for the f&^k up, as the wife no longer uses the stupid thing. I am however dissapointed that much of my hard learned efforts got blown away due to this little hiccup.;)More due to the wifes complaints than MS's changes.

As a MSCT I am very dissapointed. As a MSCT I am not surprised. With a scheduled shift towards INTERNET BASED APPLICATION SERVING, this kind of lock out was inevitable. My expectation is that eventually MS will have its own "global domain" or similar. The sooner they get that concept up and running means they will maintain their currently shrinking audience. A captured audience. If ever there was a real threat to the growing *nix comunity, check out the reported abilities of Windows 7.

Waht does the sendmail project have to say?

Gee - do you think that the fact that XandRos got into bed with Microsoft has anything to do with their being allowed?

The reports now on Windows 7 is that it is a stripped version of Vista and nothing more. Its just an extension of the "Mojave Project" where they change the name and you will now love it.

I generate a couple of newsletters and advised my viewers that I would be blocking Hotmail and MSN on my server. All but one of the 17 Redmond slaves switched to an alternate address.