Browser User Agent Strings

[ralgith]

I would like to see Mageia include itself in all browser User Agent Strings (UAS) when these browsers get compiled for Mageia. Currently Mageia is detected as just a generic Linux when the UAS is parsed from the ones I tested: Firefox, Chromium, Opera, Arora, Dillo (Doesn't even include the UAS OS identifier at all), IceApe (Rebranded Seamonkey IIRC), Rekonq, Epiphany, QupZilla, Lynx (Doesn't include OS at all), ELinks (Doesn't include OS at all), Linkx (Doesn't include OS at all),Uzbl, and Xombrero

Konqueror is currently broken as of the latest updates. It complains about a plugin that is using an incompatible library and then fails to successfully parse any URL... but that's an issue for another post.

This is something most other mainstream distributions do, and I think Mageia should do it to. It is a very simple change:
(X11; Linux x86_64)
Becomes:
(X11; Mageia; Linux x86_64)

Xombrero completely lies in it's UAS and that irks me too. It should include that it is Xombrero, not masquerade as Chrome.

Obviously 3rd paty browsers such as Google Chrome from the Google repos can't have this done, but I would like to see it in all browsers included in the Mageia Official Repos.

I love Mageia, and I hate when that ****y Ubuntu has something better than we do

[jiml8]

Such an identification aids the hordes who are trying to track us, profile us, and slice, dice, and package us. I personally either block the user agent or spoof it. Presently my Mageia system is reporting itself as "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3" and I change this from time to time as a security aid.

[ralgith]

Such an identification aids the hordes who are trying to track us, profile us, and slice, dice, and package us. I personally either block the user agent or spoof it. Presently my Mageia system is reporting itself as "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3" and I change this from time to time as a security aid.

And many sites use this data legitimately as well. And a generic UAS for the browser isn't going to be that different if you report your OS too.

I use the User-Agent switcher plugin for FireFox to change mine as well. Not for your reason, but for testing UAS detection on systems. I only change it to something that isn't mine when I'm going to visit a potentially hamrful site. It helps I mostly stay away from sites that track/profile my activity other than Google anyway

[dbg]

Using the User-Agent switcher plugin for Firefox is useful if you change your agent string often but you can change it in Firefox without the plugin.

Go to about:config, right click on the page and select "New" then "String". The preference name should be "general.useragent.override". You can then enter whatever user-agent string you want. Mine is: Mozilla/5.0 (Mageia 3; X11; Linux x86_64; rv:17.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/17.0

You can change the string in Chrome using the developer tools but after you close the tools it goes back to the default. Instructions: http://www.howtogeek.com/113439/how-to- ... xtensions/

[ralgith]

Yes, I'm aware of all of that... but it is far offtopic from the request to have Mageia brand the OS portions of their string. I take pride in being a Mageia user and it would be nice to show as one on sites (like my own and several I'm a member of that use a plugin I developed) where it is tracked.