Talk:User-Agent header/Archive 1

Archive 1

Bad English

The sentence "Spam bots and Web scrapers often use fake user agents. For example, the Android browser identifies itself as Safari in order to aid compatibility[4]." implies that the Android browser is a 'Spam bot' or 'Web scraper.' The phrase should be changed or moved to make it more clear to the reader, and to eliminate any unintended implications. 71.206.27.210 (talk) 22:42, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Safari implementation

Small point: . "...Safari implemented systems whereby the user could select a false User-Agent string to send"

hmmm..

open Terminal defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1 then select from the debug menu.

It's not an option available by default or one Apple actively puts forward to consumers, it's a 'debugging' option, so although what you say is correct it is misleadingly weighted in this context.

An example of a Macintosh browser that offers/invites the user to change the User-Agent string through regular (non-debug) preferences would be iCab, and which as far as I can recall from testing on my own website logs doesn't append iCab to the end of the string either.

Opera 9 Preview 2 - I don't believe the user agent string has changed, it still reads Opera 9, etc. Someone want to confirm and add this? Preview 2 was released on Feb 7, 2006

IE7

In case anyone is wondering, I got the IE7.0b UA from this MSDN blog Aidan 08:14, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

Revision format in Gecko browsers

Can someone confirm the "rv - 1.7.8" format in Gecko browsers? I haven't seen these in the wild, only "rv:1.7.8"

Sorry, that's a mistake, in a search/replace I did, when reformatting the lists. I intendended the "—" to appear *before* the agent string, and did not intend to change the agent string. I beleive it is fixed. Sorry, I'll be more careful in the future. --rob 05:17, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Stats

Most statistics software are able to recognize Opera and count it as such. use of Firefox or IE is not exaggerated because of UA spoofing.

Yes, Opera's spoofed user agent strings are always easily detectable as coming from Opera. However, Firefox extensions such as User Agent Switcher are able to change Firefox's user agent string so it can't be distinguished from the legitimate IE user agent string. I think it would be safe to say IE usage is probably overestimated, and usage of all other browsers may be underestimated. -- Schapel 03:10, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

There is a new phenomena that I've run into - the number of Linux OS reported is going down while the unknown is going up rapidly. I don't know what it means - is it ubuntu?

I also read about a IP fingerprinting system that detected which OS it was based on other details.