# Convincing a website I'm on a computer **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 3, 2025, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convincing-a-website-im-on-a-computer/1012517 "2025-01-03T13:01:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2025, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convincing-a-website-im-on-a-computer/1012517/21 "2025-01-03T22:52:25Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Looks like I picked the wrong week to give up making bad jokes. With your bad jokes this is the _right_ week to give them up! ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2025, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convincing-a-website-im-on-a-computer/1012517/22 "2025-01-03T22:56:12Z")
> [@Spiderman](#): > > > [@running\_coach](#): > > > > Looks like I picked the wrong week to give up making bad jokes. > > With your bad jokes this is the _right_ week to give them up! - đŸŽ¶ Never gonna give them up, Never gonna put them down
 đŸŽ¶ ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2025, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convincing-a-website-im-on-a-computer/1012517/23 "2025-01-04T01:03:05Z")
I can’t tell if it’s fully implemented in the iOS version of Safari, but apparently there may be a Developer menu, inside of which is an option to set the user agent string - this is subtly different to just ‘request desktop site’ - if you can change the user agent string, your browser can tell the remote site that you _are_ using something other than Safari on iOS ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2025, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convincing-a-website-im-on-a-computer/1012517/24 "2025-01-04T12:22:21Z")
Is there a good source for user agents that you like? ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2025, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convincing-a-website-im-on-a-computer/1012517/25 "2025-01-05T10:05:26Z")
As an occasional front-end web developer, I use user-agent switcher plugins/extensions reasonably often. Not so much now, as I do more backend/server-side dev. Anyway, now I have confused everyone with industry jargon
 here is a decent Chrome extension to switch user-agent: > **[User-Agent Switcher for Chrome - Chrome Web Store](https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/user-agent-switcher-for-c/djflhoibgkdhkhhcedjiklpkjnoahfmg?pli=1)** > > Spoofs & Mimics User-Agent strings. Similar extensions/plugins can be found for all major browsers. User-agent is so easy to spoof that it is not taken very seriously by analysts. The data has some small value, but also has huge variance. Anyway. My user-agent is currently > Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; K) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/131.0.0.0 Mobile Safari/537.36 Which says: My browser (Chrome on Android) is: - compatible with Mozilla (an early standards-setter
 I miss that browser) - It is on an Android device - not sure about the Linux part, who cares? Anyway, Android has its roots in Linux, so I guess that is why. - compatible with AppleWebKit (earlier versions of Safari) - compatible with Gecko, an ancient browser. The “K” in “KHTML” references Konquerer, an ancient browser engine. - is actually Chrome - is compatible with Safari Have a look here to see the data your browser uses to identify itself: > **[What is my user agent?](https://www.whatismybrowser.com/detect/what-is-my-user-agent/)** > > Every request your web browser makes includes your User Agent; find out what your browser is sending and what this identifies your system as. ( note, a little ad-heavy for my liking, but the results are correct ) ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2025, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convincing-a-website-im-on-a-computer/1012517/26 "2025-01-05T11:15:57Z")
If you search for What Is My User Agent, Google will return it immediately. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2025, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convincing-a-website-im-on-a-computer/1012517/27 "2025-01-05T11:23:55Z")
Nevermind, I misinterpreted RitterSports’ response. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2025, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convincing-a-website-im-on-a-computer/1012517/28 "2025-01-05T11:30:24Z")
So, what would be a good user agent to really try and convince a website that you’re on a PC? ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2025, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convincing-a-website-im-on-a-computer/1012517/29 "2025-01-05T14:17:34Z")
Sorry. User-agent detection is completely based on the incredibly naive idea, from the early days of the internet, that we all would be honest. Alas, humanity - and by extension - all user-agents, is a septic tank full of sewer run-off, and my god, did the shit people win. So, no. Just use your regular user agent. No one cares, except the expensive software that tells website owners that they need to cater to some random selection of user agent string because that is where they get 23% of hits. Like most shit on the internet, this is unlikely to be true, and, is more likely to be quoted as part of a sales pitch. I’m not sure if anyone cares anymore, but the user-agent was big in the period 1999 to 2005, or so, while the ubiquitous Microsoft Internet Explorer was super popular. Browsers spoofed Explorer’s user-agent so that they would not get blocked by websites that did not meet standards, sadly it was a futile battle. IE won. And we are all poorer for that today, a generation later. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2025, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convincing-a-website-im-on-a-computer/1012517/30 "2025-01-05T17:58:52Z")
The whole point of this thread was trying to convince a website (ultimate-guitar) that I’m on a PC so it would stop nagging about using the app. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2025, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convincing-a-website-im-on-a-computer/1012517/31 "2025-01-05T18:17:06Z")
> [@Limmin](#): > > You probably don’t want / need to hear this, but an Android tablet has a desktop mode, which shows you websites as you’d see them on a PC. I’m not sure what you’re saying here, but AFAIK “desktop view” is a browser-specific function whose effectiveness is likewise also browser-specific – that is, there’s no global setting for “make this tablet OS look like it’s a PC”. At least, not with Amazon Fire, which runs a version of Android. I use Firefox for Android, and selecting desktop view works just fine, but its persistence is limited to each tab. Every new tab created defaults to mobile view. Fortunately, in my case the only site where I really care much about the distinction is the SDMB, and I get it to consistently open in desktop view by appending a Discourse-specific string to the bookmarked URL: `/?mobile_view=0` ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2025, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convincing-a-website-im-on-a-computer/1012517/32 "2025-01-05T22:46:46Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > So, what would be a good user agent to really try and convince a website that you’re on a PC? Just pretend to be desktop Chrome on Windows, the most common configuration. Something like: `Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/131.0.0.0 Safari/537.36` > **[ULTIMATE GUITAR TABS - 1100000 songs catalog with free Chords Guitar Tabs...](https://share.cleanshot.com/xJGq2DspKv4nDwcHZcjb)** > > Screenshot For the _specific case_ of [ultimate-guitar.com](http://ultimate-guitar.com), it’s the “mobile” keyword anywhere in the user agent string that causes it to change: > **[ULTIMATE GUITAR TABS - 1100000 songs catalog with free Chords Guitar Tabs...](https://share.cleanshot.com/3bdKzt9gVRxRCy0DkTZG)** > > Screenshot But that isn’t a hard-and-fast rule. There is no single “standard” way that websites use to detect mobile browsers. But it’s often some combination of (in my experience, most to least common, but varies by site): - The website’s viewport meta tag tells phone browsers how it should be reporting its width - Viewport width by CSS media query determines layout at different sizes - Viewport width via Javascript lookup is sometimes used instead of CSS - Browser user agents can also be used, but implementations vary: - Some sites whitelist specific user agents (show a mobile page to those) - Some sites blacklist specific user agents (DON’T show the mobile page to those) - Some sites look for operating system (Windows vs Android vs Mac vs iOS) - Some sites look for certain keywords, like “mobile” in this case - Watching for “on touch” inputs (as opposed to mouse input, which looks different to a website in Javascript) - Some use a combination of the above techniques - The newer “[user agent client hints](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/User-Agent_Client_Hints_API)” But generally speaking, if you use a desktop browser user agent AND a wide enough viewport (usually by simply rotating your tablet to landscape), it should work for most sites. The “request desktop site” built into some mobile browsers just changes the user agent and viewport scaling for you. Some mobile browsers might let you explicitly change those with more control, but the end effect should still be the same. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2025, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convincing-a-website-im-on-a-computer/1012517/33 "2025-01-05T23:00:54Z")
Wow! Thanks! I’ll give it a try soon. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2025, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convincing-a-website-im-on-a-computer/1012517/34 "2025-01-06T14:28:38Z")
As far as I can tell, there’s no (free) way to arbitrarily change the user agent in iOS. There’s a paid web browser, but I have no idea if that will actually solve my problem. I’d be happy to give it a try with a one-week testing period, but that doesn’t seem to be available. Also, I find it weird how many common free things in Android and PC land are paid for in iOS – many ad blockers, for example, and that browser I mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2025, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convincing-a-website-im-on-a-computer/1012517/35 "2025-01-06T16:05:16Z")
I suspect that has something to do with Apple’s locked-down approach which means everyone and everything is a monopoly. Especially Apple itself. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convincing-a-website-im-on-a-computer/1012517.md?page=1)