General question re browser detection

I have a small but annoying issue that seems to only happen with Chrome browsers (Mac and Windows). This isn’t an Xway issue but it is with a site I’ve made with Xway. That’s my weak attempt to justify asking here… :wink:

Scenario:
I have a site (exiffixer.com) that uses a set of short URLs for some download links. The files themselves are in the exiffixer.com domain, the URL shortening service is a custom one I run on a different site.

Problem:
If someone visits using Chrome and clicks a download link, the download just doesn’t happen. For other browsers it’s fine.

Can anyone point me towards a SIMPLE way to detect Chrome browsers and rewrite the links so I can serve them dumb direct links rather than the short ones? Yes, I know this is that thing everyone says not to do: detecting a specific browser type rather than detecting feature capabilities. But this does seem like a rare legitimate use for that.

(If someone knows a better approach I am all ears! I really do want to keep using the URL shortener for all browser downloads as it tracks those very nicely.)

At a glance, and a guess, it might be because the page is reached via HTTPS but the link and the address being redirected to are HTTP. I see you have valid SSL certificates for the other two domains involved, so it might be that changing the link and redirect to use HTTPS will solve it. Or it might not…

Simon

On Sat, Dec 26, 2020 at 10:46 PM ThatKeith via groups.io <Thatkeith=email@hidden> wrote:

I have a small but annoying issue that seems to only happen with Chrome browsers (Mac and Windows). This isn’t an Xway issue but it is with a site I’ve made with Xway. That’s my weak attempt to justify asking here… :wink:

Scenario:
I have a site (exiffixer.com) that uses a set of short URLs for some download links. The files themselves are in the exiffixer.com domain, the URL shortening service is a custom one I run on a different site.

Problem:
If someone visits using Chrome and clicks a download link, the download just doesn’t happen. For other browsers it’s fine.

Can anyone point me towards a SIMPLE way to detect Chrome browsers and rewrite the links so I can serve them dumb direct links rather than the short ones? Yes, I know this is that thing everyone says not to do: detecting a specific browser type rather than detecting feature capabilities. But this does seem like a rare legitimate use for that.

(If someone knows a better approach I am all ears! I really do want to keep using the URL shortener for all browser downloads as it tracks those very nicely.)