Changing User Agent for Firefox Web Browser
User agent strings of Mozilla FireFox web browser allow web sites and web servers to identify which browser visitors used to browse the web page, and typically together with such as the application name, version, host operating system, and language. By changing user agent, sometimes, one can get access to restricted part of a website with extra contents that normally open only to bots, or search engine crawlers. This kind of area typical example is “Member Only” forums or sites that don’t want to lose out on search engine traffic.
Modification of user agent string also enable surfers to trick websites into believing that they are actually using a particular web browser or using specific system in order to avoid and disable advertising display or junk ads that targeted to specific segment of viewers of the websites only.
In Firefox, there are at least 2 ways to change the default user agent strings. The first way is by using User Agent Switcher add-on extension for Firefox, popularly used by MegaUpload hacker to bypass country download slot limit.
Once installed and restarted Firefox, simply go to Tools -> User Agent Switcher, and you will see a list of user agents which you can choose. By default there is only 3 user agents listed, namely Internet Explorer 6, Netscape and Opera. To add more, simply follow this steps:
- Go to Tools -> User Agent Switcher -> Options.
- Then click on User Agents and then click on Add.
- Key in the necessary information for your custom user agent. For example, for MegaUpload toolbar user agent, try the following configuration:
Description: MegaUpload
User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; Alexa Toolbar)If you want to simulate surfing as Google search engine spider, try to add the following instead:
Description: Googlebot 2.1
User Agent: Googlebot 2.1To fake as Apple iPhone’s Safari browser, use the iPhone user agent.
- Finish off by clicking on OK twice.
The second method that you can modify the user agent in Firefox is by performing the following steps, which do not require any download:
- Open up Firefox browser.
- In the adderss bar, type the following:
about:config
- You will see lots of preference names and their respective value. Search for “general.useragent.extra.firefox” by scrolling alphabetically or using filter.
- Right click and select Modify or double click on it.
- In the Enter string value dialog box, type in the user agent string that you want to simulate, such as “Googlebot 2.1″ to surf as Google spider bot.
- To change back to the default user agent, simply right click on the line and select Reset.
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Entries (RSS)
October 31st, 2009 01:52
You’re an idiot. The Firefox Config option doesn’t allow you to change the user agent fully. It ends up as such:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.1.3) Gecko/20090824 thingy
October 27th, 2008 03:24
[...] it added if the browser was determined to be the Googlebot. One way I found the links was to impersonate the Googlebot with Firefox. Another way to see if you were hacked is by typing [...]
August 23rd, 2008 20:05
Interesting feature – unfortunately when using it in firefox gmail tells one to use a proper browser
July 1st, 2008 03:18
[...] like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/1A543 Safari/419.3″. In Firefox and Safari, it’s easy to change user agent to imitate and spoof as iPhone Safari [...]
June 28th, 2008 02:11
[...] use Firefox web browser as if it’s the Safari browser inside the iPhone, follow this guide to change the user agent of Firefox. The user agent string to use is as [...]
April 26th, 2008 14:30
[...] Opera, Internet Explorer, Safari, atau bahkan Googlebot di situs-situs lain. Fitur ini sebenarnya bisa diakses lewat ‘about:config’ pada Firefox, tapi kalau malas repot-repot, add-on ini bisa menolong [...]
August 25th, 2007 18:29
Un poco cutre lo de traducir un post que no es tuyo con altavista y postearlo en tu blog. Mejor habla de lo que sabes. Tanto te costaba volver a redactar el post… bueno supongo que si, porque la redacción de tu nota es de por si, bastante, mediocre.