Spoofing the User Agent in IE6, in Firefox, and in Opera
Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 4:10 am
Windows 98 Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by Ed
(741 messages posted)
There are three solutions to this vicious attack on Windows 9x by Google, any one
of which will enable a Windows 9x browser to access a website from which Win9x is
banned.
The latest version of Internet Explorer that can run on Win9x is IE6 SP1 (Service
Pack 1). The latest version of Firefox that can run on Win9x is Firefox 2.0.0.20.
There are solutions for both of these browsers.
I strongly recommend upgrading to one at least of those versions, which in each case
is the last version that supports Windows 98/98SE/ME. Firefox v2.0.0.20 is currently
available as a free download from http://www.oldapps.com/firefox.php
Internet Explorer 6 -
Firstly, Internet Explorer 6 (SP1) can be made to spoof the User Agent, so as to
report itself as being a newer browser. For example, here's how to appear to be Internet
Explorer 7:
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User
Agent]
"Version"="Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)"
Copy-and-paste the green text into a plain text file created by Notepad.exe, and
save it as a .REG file (e.g. UserAgent.reg); then right-click on that file and select
the option "Merge".
Firefox -
Secondly, Firefox 2.0.0.20 (and, in fact, probably any version of Firefox 2)
can spoof its User Agent in either of the following two ways -
A. Firefox Add-On method
You can download an Add-on for Firefox called "User Agent Switcher".
However, this Add-on doesn't change the browser's default. In other words, every
time you load Firefox you have to go to TOOLS > ADD-ONs and select the User Agent
of a more recent version.
If that isn't a problem, here's how to install it -
1. Run Firefox and download the User Agent Switcher from
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59
2. Follow the on-screen instructions, then restart Firefox.
3. Go to: Tools > Default User Agent > Edit User Agents
4. Click: New > New User Agent
5. Add a description, such as "Firefox 3.6"
6. Type the following user agent string, as a single line,
into the "User Agent" box (edit the string as desired):
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows 98; en-US; rv:1.9.2)Gecko/20100101 Firefox/3.6
For example: Change Windows 98 to Windows Vista, etc.
More importantly, change the location information
("en-US" tells the locale and language).
B. Editing Firefox's Default
Alternatively, if you don't want to have to always tell Firefox which user agent
to masquerade as, do this instead:
1. Open a new tab in Firefox.
2. Type "about:config" in the Address bar, then press .
3. Type "Useragent" into the Filter box.
4. Double-click on "general.useragent.extra.firefox".
5. In the dialog box "Enter String Value", that pops up: change the default value
e.g. from "Firefox/2.0.0.20" to "Firefox/3.5.4" or "Firefox/3.6", etc.
This method also works for the Opera browser.
One side-effect of spoofing the User Agent is that the forces of evil, who count
up how much web surfing is done by each type of browser, will start to see a (false)
decline in the apparant use of IE6 and Firefox 2, because those browsers are being
forced to masquerade as something else.
In the case of Firefox, if you use the first method above it's necessary to set the
User Agent at the start of each Firefox session, so at least there the spoof doesn't
run by default, but only if intended. Also, in that method the spoof can be switched
off again easily, when going on to browse other sites.
Ed
On Monday, February 1, 2010 at 4:35 am, sekirt wrote:
>Official Google Enterprise Blog: Modern browsers for modern applications:
>
>href="http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/01/modern-browsers-for-modern-applications.html">
>color=#000000>http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/01/modern-browsers-for-modern-applications.html
>
>
>color=#6a5acd size=3>sekirt
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