It may also be accessed via javascript by querying the value of eragent. This can include browsers that are running email applications, app web views, operating systems and, most importantly, the device itself. Based on your user agent string, we have decided that you have an older browser, are a mobile device, or are a robot. But fact is, for most browsers it can be set to arbitrary values by the user, it can be modified by proxies between server and client, and it can be changed or supplemented by certain libraries and other software components on the client side. And so microsoft made their own web browser, which they called internet explorer, hoping for it to be a netscape killer. Early browsers the first web browser, mosaic, was released in 1993 by the national center for supercomputing applications ncsa. Depending on browser you would also get additional information. A user agent ua string is able to be used to detect what version of a specific browser is being used on a certain operating system. This shortcut is the starting point for the chaos in useragent string. This sounds simple, but user agents have become a mess over time. This is for statistical purposes, the tracing of protocol violations, and automated recognition of user agents for the sake of tailoring responses to avoid particular. When a software agent operates in a network protocol, it often identifies itself, its application type, operating system, software vendor, or software revision, by submitting a characteristic identification string to its operating peer.
Browsers continue to send horrid user agent strings like this because there are still websites that use user agent sniffing even modern ones that do it and some of these may never be updated. When feature detection apis are not available, use the ua to customize behavior or content to specific browser versions. Internet explorer wants to be identified as netscape 4. Find lists of user agent strings from browsers, crawlers, spiders, bots, validators and others. User agent strings typically carry information about an operating system, web browser and a basic hardware device information. Before we get into the history, it is worth stating upfront that useragent parsing is used. Get an analysis of your or any other user agent string. I came across this blog which talks about the history of useragent.
Udger ua list database includes detailed information about every single user agent and operating system. The user agent header contains a freeform ascii string that should uniquely identify the user agent making the request. Com has a large list of user agent strings by ua type, and offers an api. An anonymized string created from your email address also called a hash may be provided to the gravatar service to see if you are using it. The ua string of firefox is broken down into 4 components. However, if you want to gather the information or manipulate the data, it would be better to use a serverside scripting language, such as perl. Its about the variability of user agent strings a server receives. Your current useragent string appears to be from an. Because of this you have been provided a limited functionality version of prenticenet.
The web server can use this information to provide content that is tailored for your. How to extract the os and browser from a user agent string in our logs without a splunk app or external script. Hi there, i cant help thinking that you give the user agent string a meaning it doesnt deserve. Useragent examples,user agent types,user agent request. Today we are talking about parsing one part of the ua string and a specific part of it. It may refer to an email client see messaging system, a web browser, search engine spider or any other program in the user s machine that is accessing a service on the internet see user agent string. A browsers user agent string ua helps identify which browser is being used, what version, and on which operating system. What is the standard format for a browsers useragent string. Internet explorer 11s many useragent strings ieinternals. In fact, that was the most common user agent string among browsers visiting the eff website during the test period. The user agent request header is a characteristic string that lets servers and network peers identify the application, operating system, vendor, andor version of the requesting user agent. A user agent is a particular string of characters in each browser that allows acts as an identification agent. This string indicates which browser you are using, its version number, and details about your system, such as operating system and version. Udger database includes detailed information about every single user agent and operating system.
This can make useragent sniffing a bit more difficult although. Understand what information is contained in a user agent string. It is common practice for this string to name the user agent s hardware and browser, and versions. Of course this requires using a device detection solution which. When you visit a webpage, the browser sends the useragent string to the. To provide a amazon fire tvspecific experience, test for the string amazonwebappplatform in combination with a device model that starts with aft. The contents of the user agent field vary from browser to. In computing, a user agent is software a software agent that is acting on behalf of a user, such. Thats where steps in we decode your user agent string to figure out everything its saying. For example, the button at the beginning of this page uses javascript to display your user agent string. Feature detection cannot detect many browser quirks.
Having the knowledge from above, user agent spoofing is used by many programmers that dont want people to know how theyre getting to the site s. When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitors ip address and browser user agent string to help spam detection. The above demonstrate that its an unreliable way to guess what browser the user is using. When reading the user agent string, do not rely on specific version numbers within the string that are subject to change when the software is updated.
Find out what your web browser is sending in its user agent header. Once the useragent string is parsed and we have the list of productscomments, more problems arise. Sep, 2017 a user agent is a string that is, a line of text identifying the browser and operating system to the web server. Kmeleon is a fast and customizable lightweight web browser for windows, based on the rendering engine of mozilla.
The useragent string is very useful because it tells you quite specific information. You can also sign up for the free api which will give you access to our user agent parser. Dec 29, 2017 there are a few ways to access user agent information. Uas contain information such as the browser version, compatibility, operating system, and any modifying plugins. A user agent is a short string that web browsers and other applications send to identify themselves to web servers. Some programmers will find legitimate uas and program their script to use such uas. For example, if a user s product were called wikibrowser, their user agent string might be wikibrowser1. All the other user agent listings do a pretty average job of making it easy to browse related user agents, so when i built this listing, making this easy for users was one of the major priorities behind the design of it.
The useragent header contains a freeform ascii string that should uniquely identify the user agent making the request. An app or web page can read the user agent string to detect fire. Understanding browsers useragent lets start to learn. Web browser products has varied throughout the webs history, and this has. Its not until the response to that request is received that it gets the servers xuacompatible directive. It is desirable for there to be standardization in the format of these strings, for logfile analysis and other purposes. But fact is, for most browsers it can be set to arbitrary values by the user, it can be modified by proxies between server and client, and it can be changed or supplemented by. Digging into the data is a trove of information, broken delights, privacy insanity, etc.
I use pure javascript rendering on the client side, and feature detection is not enough. Detects and show a lot of information about your browser and your installed plugins. Jan 12, 2010 one of the most controversial web browsers, as far as user agent strings are concerned, is opera. The following is an abridged version of the history of user agent strings as it appears in my book, professional javascript for web developers, 2nd edition. The user agent allows the webserver ti to identify the operating system and the browser. This is a major revision of the original, obsolete, useragent string proposal. However, user agent strings are easy to spoof, so not every request using these user agent names inside of their user agent string may be coming from a real bing crawler. Device detection analyzes the user agent ua string sent by the browser. Useragent string shared techniques wiki for the w3c. A searchable database of user agents as used by browsers, searchengines spiders and crawlers, webdirectories, download managers, link checkers, proxy servers, web filtering tools, harvesters, spambots, badbots. It may refer to an email client see messaging system, a web browser, search engine spider or any other program in the users machine that is accessing a service on. The function parses the useragent string passed as argument, and returns an array of associative arrays, each one defining a productcomment in the agent string key of the associative array are product, version, comment. The user agent tells the server what the visiting device is among many other things and this information can be used to determine what content to return.
This is a major revision of the original, obsolete, user agent string proposal. Useragent string article about useragent string by the. The amazon fire tv platform includes the android webview android. A searchable database of useragents as used by browsers, searchengines spiders and crawlers, webdirectories, download managers, link checkers, proxy servers, web filtering tools, harvesters, spambots, badbots. Content providers often have complex regression test environments to ensure their pages render and behave correctly on different platforms 9, 20.
When you visit a web page, your browser sends the user agent string to the server hosting the site that you are visiting. On the structure and characteristics of user agent string. This tool allows you to check what the latest i 6000038 will identify any user agent as. The useragent tells the server what the visiting device is among many other things and this information can be used to determine what content to return. Sometimes abbreviated as ua, the user agent is a browser text string that is given to each website you visit. This is for statistical purposes, the tracing of protocol violations, and automated recognition of user agents for the sake of tailoring responses to avoid particular user agent limitations.
The browsers, desiring to support all content on the internet, must then have this horrid user agent in order to do so. Ie provides feature tokens that contains information about. Useragent sniffing is a necessary evil, even with careful use of feature detection. Tech support scams are an industrywide issue where scammers trick you into paying for unnecessary technical support services. Uas can be blank, or contain custom information like a url to a site that might promote a particular browser or. If the xuacompatible has been set to ie9, ie11 should send the ie9 user agent string not the ie11 user agent string ericlaw its not clear how you imagine that would work. Then netscape was reborn as mozilla with a whole bunch of. User agent strings per browser, operating system, device, brand and plugin. For example, the nokia 6600 series sends a header like. Sep 21, 20 if the xuacompatible has been set to ie9, ie11 should send the ie9 user agent string not the ie11 user agent string ericlaw its not clear how you imagine that would work. It is from my webtools project update coming soon to the repo.
Nov 22, 2014 user agent sniffing is a necessary evil, even with careful use of feature detection. For example, the useragent string might be used by a web server to choose variants. In an authentication rule, a request header useragent value can be used to determine if user authentication will be performed. This document is the official mozilla useragent string specification. Using this data, a website can assess the capabilities of your computer, optimizing a pages performance and display. Since some uas have more than one nameversion phrase i use an ordered array to define the precedence. In the user agent request header field, amazon silk sends one of three user agent strings, depending on the. Then, the web server uses the exchanged information to determine what content is presented to particular operating systems and web browsers on a. The useragent header is part of the rfc7231, which is an improved version of the rfc1945, where it states the useragent requestheader field contains information about the user agent originating the request. The history of the useragent string is marked by browsers trying to convince useragent sniffers that they are what they are not. User agent string decoder is a decoder tool that allows translating a browser user agent string into data blocks. The user agent string format is currently specified by section 5. The default user agent string for opera is the most logical of all modern browsers, correctly identifying itself and its version. The above crawlers will identify themselves with the above names in the user agent string.
Useragent string shared techniques wiki for the w3c mobile. For historical reasons, almost every browser today sends it. For more on firefox and geckobased user agent strings, see the firefox user agent string reference. User agent string provide information on application type, operating system, software vendor version and layout rendering engine. Konqueror and webkit want to be identified as firefox. Create a mobile website create a mobile website with this easy tool. If this assumption is incorrect, please contact us and provide your user agent string. At least thats not just because of a user agent string. User agent strings and detection amazon silk aws documentation. This string often identifies the browser, its version number, and its host operating. However, the primary mechanism for ensuring that content is delivered in the optimal format is the user agent string. You can help protect yourself from scammers by verifying that the contact is a microsoft agent or microsoft employee and that the phone number is an official microsoft global customer service number.
Notice that the operating system and browser versions are extremely specific and that the user agent also includes the users preferred language. He may have been born in great saling, or at least lived there for a time, because the vicar at great saling there witnessed williams 1574 will. And to do that, you need to take a look at how the useragent string has. The user agent requestheader field contains information about the user agent originating the request. History of the browser useragent string 2008 hacker news. Kmeleon is free open source software released under the gnu general public license. What do you think is the best way to parse user agent strings.