User-Agent Spoofing

Sometimes, you might encounter problem of accessing a website, just because the web server doesn’t recognize or allow that web browser (client program) you used to access the site. Some of you might recall Google Chrome version earlier than 0.4.154.33 encountered problem with Windows Live Mail (a.k.a. hotmail), as the Microsoft free webmail system didn’t properly recognize this. User-Agent spoofer/switcher extension/addons allows users to access sites which lock contents to certain browsers .

Fix It For Firefox:

The User Agent Switcher addon adds a menu and a toolbar button to switch the user agent of the browser. The typical usage is to allow access to sites that restrict access based on the browser being used. To switch the user agent of the browser select a user agent in the ‘User Agent Switcher’ menu under the ‘Tools’ menu of the browser. To customize the list of user agents select ‘Edit User Agents…’ under the ‘User Agent Switcher’ menu.

Download User Agent Switcher Extension from here https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59/

Alternate Method:
1. Open Firefox web browser, type about:config in the address bar and press ENTER.
2. You might see some text titled “Here be dragons!”, just click the only button to proceed. Now, you should see a page of Firefox settings (known as Preference). Right click on the page, select New follow by String.
3. In the New String Value dialog box, enter the preference name general.useragent.override and click OK.
4. The next dialog box appears, this time prompt for a value for the Preference name defined in previous step – enter the user agent string of your choice here:

Now, you should close all the Firefox windows. Upon reopen, the new user agent string specified in general.useragent.override should be effective. To verify it, type about: in the address bar and press enter.

Fix It For Chrome:

Chromeleon is a user agent switcher extension for Google chrome. This extension allows users to change the user agent string passed by Chrome to mock any browser they wish. This user-agent spoofer extension allows Chrome users to access sites which lock contents to certain browsers or intentionally block chrome. Also you can set a specific filtering list, so that Chromeleon will automatically switch user-agent strings based on the domain or URL specified.

Features of Chromeleon User agent Switcher extension: One click Useragent changer, Can add specific URL filter list, Add custom user agent strings

Only problem with this extension is that it does not modify HTTP headers, so sites which sniff useragents at network level could see through the spoofing.

Download Chromeleon Extension from here https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/aafciojnlamllgpkpdkbamkfgbofhgcj

Alternate Method:
1. Chrome browser spoofing could also be done from command line without installing the extension.
2. Create a new shortcut for chrome and add –user-agent=”custom string” to the target of this shortcut [e.g. C:\Users\XXXX\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe --user-agent="Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0; Trident/4.0; Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1) ; .NET CLR 3.5.30729)" ].
3. Now run chrome using this shortcut.