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in reply to Re: Getting Netscape to use a linked XSL stylesheet
in thread Getting Netscape to use a linked XSL stylesheet

I don't believe it's legal to have an HTTP response without a valid Content-Type. A text/plain content-type, though, is fairly common as a "fall-back" for most web servers.

The problem here is that IE never trusts the web server. When it receives what it considers a "possibly too generic" content type, it will second-guess the web server and try to figure out the content type on its own, so if it sees a text/plain content-type, but something that looks XML or HTML-ish, it will interpret it as XML or HTML.

Most people view this as really evil/stupid behavior, since it encourages misconfigured web servers. Neither Mozilla nor Netscape have adopted this practice, to my knowledge.

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Re^3: Getting Netscape to use a linked XSL stylesheet
by Flexx (Pilgrim) on Sep 23, 2002 at 01:43 UTC

    Yep. I didn't mean it's okay to send no content type header. And I also think that IE is an instrument of evil, but I feared to be voted down for being too honest about my opinion ;)

    And I'm sure the followers of the Gates Monastery ;) will argue how smart a "feature" it is to realize an XML document even if the server wants it to be viewed as plain text (for whatever reason -- none of the browsers business...) They're like their browsers: They think they know everything better... ;)

    Sorry, couldn't resist.. ;)

    Cheers, Flexx

    BTW, I wrote this on IE 6... >;|