META CHARSET

Someone complained that a Japanese page is garbled in Edge/Chrome, but renders with the correct characters in Firefox and IE: The problem is that Chromium is using an unexpected character set to interpret the response in the HTML Parser. That happens because the server doesn’t send a proper character set directive. To avoid problems likeContinue reading “META CHARSET”

Client Certificate Authentication

While most HTTPS sites only authenticate the server (using a certificate sent by the website), HTTPS also supports a mutual authentication mode, whereby the client supplies a certificate that authenticates the visiting user’s identity. Such a certificate might be stored on a SmartCard, or used as a part of an OS identity feature like WindowsContinue reading “Client Certificate Authentication”

Analyzing Network Traffic Logs (NetLog json)

Previously, I’ve described how to capture a network traffic log from Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, and applications based on Chromium or Electron. In this post, I aim to catalog some guidance for looking at these logs to help find the root cause of captured problems and otherwise make sense of the data collected. Last Update:Continue reading “Analyzing Network Traffic Logs (NetLog json)”

Debugging Proxy Configuration Scripts in the new Edge

I’ve written about Browser Proxy Configuration a few times over the years, and I’m delighted that Chromium has accurate & up-to-date documentation for its proxy support. Chromium’s PAC fetching code (and the code that calls it) is also quite readable with many comments. One thing I’d like to call out is that Microsoft Edge’s newContinue reading “Debugging Proxy Configuration Scripts in the new Edge”

Celebrating Fifteen Years

While lately I’ve been endlessly streaming the latest news with horrified fascination, this morning my calendar unexpectedly popped up a reminder set over a year ago… Today is the fifteenth anniversary of my big-league blogging debut on the Internet Explorer Team’s blog. My first post there, “A HTTP Detective Story” remains one of my favorites.Continue reading “Celebrating Fifteen Years”