Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

User Agent Faker iOs 5.01

Enigmafan420

Enigmafan420

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 18, 2008
898
1
Puget Sound, U.S.A.
Anyone have this working in 5.01?

It installs and I can set the appropriate toggles including the one for Safari. But when I am surfing, I am getting the mobile sites instead of the full sites.

Any suggestions?

thanks! :eek:
 
Enigmafan420 said:
Anyone have this working in 5.01?

It installs and I can set the appropriate toggles including the one for Safari. But when I am surfing, I am getting the mobile sites instead of the full sites.

Any suggestions?

thanks! :eek:
Click to expand...

I didn't try it until I saw your post. Confirmed. Exact same thing is happening. :(
 
v1.3-2 seems to work fine here on an iPhone 4s, OS 5.0.1. With it off I get transferred to m.yahoo.com when I try to visit www.yahoo.com. With it on and set to Firefox, I am allowed to stay at www.yahoo.com.
 
tateu said:
v1.3-2 seems to work fine here on an iPhone 4s, OS 5.0.1. With it off I get transferred to m.yahoo.com when I try to visit www.yahoo.com. With it on and set to Firefox, I am allowed to stay at www.yahoo.com.
Click to expand...

I don't even get that. I am wondering if I forgot a step?

I installed it, made sure it was turned "on" and then chose Safari from the Apps list. Is that all I need to do?

FYI-iPhone 4S thought I am sure that doesn't matter. I would think 5.01 is 5.01.
 
Edit: Nevermind, I reread your first post and see you already did this...I don't know...
 
I've figured out that it works around 30% of the time now. :( Not on hertz.com (which is the primary reason I got it as you can't book a car to save your life on their mobile or iPhone app :mad:), but yahoo.com does indeed work. Noticed that it also depends WHERE you navigate to on sites. Example: eater.com -- when you click certain articles, you will redirect to the mobile versions of those pages.

Hope this gets updated and fixed.
 
Yes, I can confirm that it doesn't work for some sites that you mentioned, such as hertz.com. But if I go to whatsmyuseragent.com, with UAFaker running, my fake user agent string is displayed correctly. Does this mean that some sites, such as Hertz, are using methods besides the user agent to determine if we are on a mobile device?
 
tateu said:
Yes, I can confirm that it doesn't work for some sites that you mentioned, such as hertz.com. But if I go to whatsmyuseragent.com, with UAFaker running, my fake user agent string is displayed correctly. Does this mean that some sites, such as Hertz, are using methods besides the user agent to determine if we are on a mobile device?
Click to expand...

:( Not encouraging.

I know this sounds minor, but this tweak is one of the PRIMARY reasons I JB. I HATE mobile sites and I hate the fact that these Web Site owners think we need a stripped down, ugly, virtually useless web site. I mean really, HSPA +, even "old" 3G is much faster than my first DSL connection. There really is no need anymore for "mobile" versions anymore. Does anyone really even use WAP anymore?
 
Enigmafan420 said:
:( Not encouraging.

I know this sounds minor, but this tweak is one of the PRIMARY reasons I JB. I HATE mobile sites and I hate the fact that these Web Site owners think we need a stripped down, ugly, virtually useless web site. I mean really, HSPA +, even "old" 3G is much faster than my first DSL connection. There really is no need anymore for "mobile" versions anymore. Does anyone really even use WAP anymore?
Click to expand...

this is not an direct answer to your issue, but if you cannot get it to work I would suggest alternatively trying Atomic Web Browser. It will allow you to change the user Agent to any of the following:

Atomic-iPad.jpg
 
That page lists User Agent Faker v1.1. The latest is 1.3.2 and I can confirm that it does work for its sole purpose of changing your user agent string on a 4s running IOS v5.0.1.

I think the problem with some sites is that there are other ways to detect mobile browsers. I know of two:

1) Using javascript request the browser size, screen.width and screen.height. My iPhone 4s reports 320x480. My desktop reports 1920x1200. So now, just redirect browsers with a small size (width <= 480) to your mobile site.

2) Using the CSS media property to deliver a specialized CSS file to browsers with a small screen size.

<link media="only screen and (min-device-width: 481px)" href="desktop.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" />
<link media="only screen and (max-device-width: 480px)" href="mobile.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" />
 
I noticed even last year on 4.x some sites are figuring out the mobile browser in spite of UA Faker so maybe more are doing it.
 
tateu said:
Yes, I can confirm that it doesn't work for some sites that you mentioned, such as hertz.com. But if I go to whatsmyuseragent.com, with UAFaker running, my fake user agent string is displayed correctly. Does this mean that some sites, such as Hertz, are using methods besides the user agent to determine if we are on a mobile device?
Click to expand...

I don't think so since my iP4 running iOS 4.1 had no problems on any sites I navigated to... Perhaps the app just needs to be updated.

Enigmafan420 said:
There really is no need anymore for "mobile" versions anymore.
Click to expand...

There is if you own a BB. :D
 
HUGE AL said:
I don't think so since my iP4 running iOS 4.1 had no problems on any sites I navigated to... Perhaps the app just needs to be updated.
Click to expand...
The only thing it is supposed to do is change your user agent string and I can guarantee that it is doing that correctly. You can verify it too, just go to http://www.whatsmyuseragent.com with User Agent Faker v1.3.2 enabled for Safari and set to something other than iPad or iPhone and you will see that your user agent no longer identifies your browser as a mobile device.

I've looked through the hertz.com javascript code and, while it is obfuscated so I can't be 100% sure of what it is doing, I am sure that it requests your screen width and height, which, as I stated above, can be used to force you to the mobile site. They also appear to check if you have shockwaveflash available, which could be another way they determine whether or not to send you to the mobile site.
 
tateu said:
The only thing it is supposed to do is change your user agent string and I can guarantee that it is doing that correctly. You can verify it too, just go to http://www.whatsmyuseragent.com with User Agent Faker v1.3.2 enabled for Safari and set to something other than iPad or iPhone and you will see that your user agent no longer identifies your browser as a mobile device.

I've looked through the hertz.com javascript code and, while it is obfuscated so I can't be 100% sure of what it is doing, I am sure that it requests your screen width and height, which, as I stated above, can be used to force you to the mobile site. They also appear to check if you have shockwaveflash available, which could be another way they determine whether or not to send you to the mobile site.
Click to expand...

I'm sure what you're saying carries credence as well. All I'm reporting is that on the 4S running 5.0.1, hertz.com redirects to the mobile site; on the 4 running 4.1, it's not. As to why this is happening, I have no idea.
 
After some more investigation, I have found that User Agent Faker v1.3.2 for iPhone running on a 4s with IOS 5.0.1 only modifies the http header value for User-Agent. It does not alter the javascript response to navigator.userAgent which could be another reason why it doesn't work for all sites.

In contrast, User Agents Switcher v0.7.3 running on Firefox 9 and Windows XP changes both the http header and the javascript response.
 
maturola said:
this is not an direct answer to your issue, but if you cannot get it to work I would suggest alternatively trying Atomic Web Browser.
Click to expand...
I just tried it out. While it does change both the http header value for User-Agent and the javascript response to navigator.userAgent it does not change the javascript response to navigator.platform. The iPhone still responds with "iPhone" and the iPad still responds with "iPad."
 
tateu said:
I just tried it out. While it does change both the http header value for User-Agent and the javascript response to navigator.userAgent it does not change the javascript response to navigator.platform. The iPhone still responds with "iPhone" and the iPad still responds with "iPad."
Click to expand...

Weird, I haven't dig into it lately but last time, when they released v6 it was an option to define a custom User Agent String.
 
Atomic Browser does allow you to define a custom "user agent" string but the javascript property for navigator.platform is a separate element from navigator.userAgent. This means that changing userAgent does not set the correct navigator.platform property. I don't know how many sites use the navigator.platform property, but if any of them do, then just changing the user agent is not enough.
 
Use Puffin browser. Because it accepts Flash content, it seems to load true desktop versions of sites more often then not. Good luck! :)
 
I just tried hertz.com with iCab Mobile and I get the desktop version as expected.
 
Subscribing as I'm interested in a safari user agent fix as well.

With the safari uploader tweak I'm really not wanting to use anything else.

If only frash would come back!
 
It works for me. I have it set to Firefox. I do not get mobile sites anymore.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back