[mdlug] User agent partial success

[David D. Favro]

Hello,

Opera *used*to* have a spot in one of the preferences panels to set the user-agent to any arbitrary string.  As is their wont, they make their program worse and worse with each new version that they release, removing some features and breaking others.  The user-agent field disappeared several major versions ago, maybe about 2 years already.

That said, since you say you're running 7.55, perhaps it's still there, so look for it.  I forget exactly where, just do an exhaustive search of all preferences panels.

On the current "real-computer" version of Opera, there are some things relating to the user-agent that can be set by using the URL "opera:config" and looking in the "User Agent" section -- but seemingly no ability to set it to a completely arbitrary string.  But try that also on your Zaurus version, maybe you can find satisfaction there.  Also, try the opera.xxxx usenet groups -- there's a feed on opera.com.  I wonder if those x's will make this message get caught by spam filters?

I guess it's relatively safe to change something like "Opera" to another string in the executable, as long as you don't change lengths, but it possibly might create malfunctions.  Changing "%s"'s as you mentioned, on the other hand, is playing with fire, and I wouldn't be surprised if you have major malfunctions, even seg-faults.

All of this points out the value of using free software: if you had the source, at worst you could just change the user-agent string and recompile -- and more likely, someone else would have already added the user option to change it, as in FF's UA-switcher extension.  It's a question of control.  Presumably, Opera doesn't want people to masquerade the UA because various web-sites collect aggregate statistics of what percent of the users that hit their servers are using which browser, and if people masquerade, it will make Opera's market-share look smaller.  While I can sympathize, I detest companies that try to take control of the product away from me.

That said, what this also *really* underlines is the value of using standards-compliant web-sites.  My solution for a site that tells me, "Our site only supports browser X" is:
1. Never return to that site.
2. If it is a company with whom I do business, and at all possible, I immediately stop doing business with them, telling them why: "I only do business with companies that have standards-based web-sites".  I have no problem changing banks, credit-card companies, etc. for this reason, but government agencies, with their implicit monopoly, are more problematic.

Finally.. obviously, the stuff about changing the user-agent via the URL is hooey.  The proxy idea could work, but what a horrible kludge of a solution.  Just get a browser that's not junk and lets you set the user-agent.  Solving problems by having two pieces of software "fight" each other is never a good solution -- just fix the broken software to begin with.  E.g., if you have open ports and you don't want something to connect to them, don't use a "software firewall" -- much better to just _not_open_ those ports to begin with.

Happy Holidays,
-- David F.

P.S. All of that stuff said, I still use Opera, and will probably continue to do so until their downward trajectory of usefulness intersects FireFox's upwards one.  But I don't believe that has happened as yet.  Of course, I haven't seen FireFox 2.0 yet! :-)

On Wed, 20 Dec 2006 16:53:43 -0500, Drew <drew4096 at gmail.com> wrote:

>     I dug out the .ipk for Opera 7.55, extracted it, then went into
> the executable binary with hexedit, and looked for every instance of
> "Mozilla" and overwrote the "Opera" following each one with spaces.
> I also managed to change "Qt embedded" to "Windows 98 ".
> 
>     Then I tarred it back up, put it on the camera's CF card, and
> untarred it into the Zaurus. I now have the user agent string saying
> "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98 Linux armv41; 240x320
>       [en]".
> 
>     Still can't get rid of the "Linux" and "armv41" in spite of having
> spaced out the only "Linux" in the binary, and there being no "armv41"
> in it in the first place. Maybe gmail and the other site I'm interested
> in will buy it anyway; I'll know on the next Panera visit. If not,
> I'll try spacing out the %s characters next.
> 
>     It seems that the Opera writers have gone out of their way to
> make it difficult for the user to specify the user agent string as he
> likes. But at least I've gotten rid of the telltale "Opera" string.