Useragent question - in about:config
Is general.useragent.extra.seamonkey no longer functional? I had written (at some point); Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.13; rv:61.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/74.0 but when I check at- https://www.whatismybrowser.com/detect/what-is-my-user-agent it shows me Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.13; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 SeaMonkey/2.53.1 Lightning/5.8.1 ___ support-seamonkey mailing list support-seamonkey@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-seamonkey
Re: Useragent question - in about:config
Geoff Welsh wrote on 12/04/2020 4:53 AM: Is general.useragent.extra.seamonkey no longer functional? I had written (at some point); Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.13; rv:61.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/74.0 but when I check at- https://www.whatismybrowser.com/detect/what-is-my-user-agent it shows me Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.13; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 SeaMonkey/2.53.1 Lightning/5.8.1 Geoff, where did you get the preference "general.useragent.extra.seamonkey" from?? If you enter "about:config" in the browser address bar, and, then, after accepting the warning, if you enter "useragent" in the Search: bar, you should see all the preferences which include "useragent" in the preference. On that screen, do you see listed a preference called "general.useragent.extra.seamonkey"?? I don't!! If you do see that preference, in the column labelled "Status", does it say "default" or "user set"?? If the later, you (or someone at your computer) have set up a specific useragent to be displayed to a 'seamonkey'. 'www.whatis mybrowser.com' is not 'seamonkey' so your SeaMonkey is displaying its real useragent. It is also possible that when you installed Lightning, it reset your general User Agent string to show SeaMonkey/2.53.1 and then added in the Lightning/5.8.1 -- Daniel Win7 User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 SeaMonkey/2.49.5 Build identifier: 20190609032134 Linux User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 SeaMonkey/2.49.1 Build identifier: 20171015235623 ___ support-seamonkey mailing list support-seamonkey@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-seamonkey
Re: Useragent question - in about:config
Daniel wrote: Geoff Welsh wrote on 12/04/2020 4:53 AM: Is general.useragent.extra.seamonkey no longer functional? I had written (at some point); Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.13; rv:61.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/74.0 but when I check at- https://www.whatismybrowser.com/detect/what-is-my-user-agent it shows me Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.13; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 SeaMonkey/2.53.1 Lightning/5.8.1 Geoff, where did you get the preference "general.useragent.extra.seamonkey" from?? If you enter "about:config" in the browser address bar, and, then, after accepting the warning, if you enter "useragent" in the Search: bar, you should see all the preferences which include "useragent" in the preference. On that screen, do you see listed a preference called "general.useragent.extra.seamonkey"?? I don't!! If you do see that preference, in the column labelled "Status", does it say "default" or "user set"?? If the later, you (or someone at your computer) have set up a specific useragent to be displayed to a 'seamonkey'. 'www.whatis mybrowser.com' is not 'seamonkey' so your SeaMonkey is displaying its real useragent. It is also possible that when you installed Lightning, it reset your general User Agent string to show SeaMonkey/2.53.1 and then added in the Lightning/5.8.1 I got the preference from this newsgroup many years ago. It's user added and set. It was to replace an old preference that the developers dropped around the time the "advertise Firefox compatibility" thing started. I had been modifying it along the way. Up until this new (2.53) it was still fooling web-sites. Or at least it was still working the last time I checked. I used to be quite active in this group many years ago, but lost track at some point. I would switch it to whatever to try and get sites to display. As to Lightning, I never added that myslef. That happened on it's own. If it is not stock in 2.53.1 then possibly during one of the betas I was running.(?) "They" went back and forth on Ligthning between bundled. Anyway, my question stands, as to whether 2.53 versions no longer recognize the user added pref general.useragent.extra.seamonkey I know there was a huge back-end re-write between 2.49 and now so it would make sense, just looking for input from somebody who knows. GW ___ support-seamonkey mailing list support-seamonkey@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-seamonkey
Re: Useragent question - in about:config
closing out my own question, thanks to some google searches; the new preference to add in about:config to spoof at will is; general.useragent.override view message source on this post and it /should/ say Firefox 74 you can put Chrome or webkit or whatever you want. :-) ___ support-seamonkey mailing list support-seamonkey@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-seamonkey
Re: Useragent question - in about:config
Geoff Welsh wrote on 13/04/2020 8:41 AM: closing out my own question, thanks to some google searches; the new preference to add in about:config to spoof at will is; general.useragent.override view message source on this post and it /should/ say Firefox 74 you can put Chrome or webkit or whatever you want. :-) Yeap, I see your User Agent as Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.13; rv:61.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/74.0 but did you notice the pref you listed was "general.useragent.override" not the "general.useragent.override.seamonkey" that you quoted first time around. As I understand it, now that you have it set to "general.useragent.override", ever site you visit will think you are using FF V78, not SM. -- Daniel Win7 User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 SeaMonkey/2.49.5 Build identifier: 20190609032134 Linux User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 SeaMonkey/2.49.1 Build identifier: 20171015235623 ___ support-seamonkey mailing list support-seamonkey@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-seamonkey
Re: Useragent question - in about:config
Daniel wrote on 13-04-20 10:22: Geoff Welsh wrote on 13/04/2020 8:41 AM: closing out my own question, thanks to some google searches; the new preference to add in about:config to spoof at will is; general.useragent.override view message source on this post and it /should/ say Firefox 74 you can put Chrome or webkit or whatever you want. :-) Yeap, I see your User Agent as Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.13; rv:61.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/74.0 but did you notice the pref you listed was "general.useragent.override" not the "general.useragent.override.seamonkey" that you quoted first time around. As I understand it, now that you have it set to "general.useragent.override", ever site you visit will think you are using FF V78, not SM. As an example, I have added some new entries where I changed the string accordingly with host I reach; general.useragent.override.google.com -- string set to: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:67.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/67.0 ___ support-seamonkey mailing list support-seamonkey@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-seamonkey
Re: Useragent question - in about:config
Ray_Net wrote: As I understand it, now that you have it set to "general.useragent.override", ever site you visit will think you are using FF V78, not SM. That's correct. It's a general setting that covers all of Seamonkey, including your email. Thus, in the message wrote, there is this header: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.13; rv:61.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/74.0 Since I have the dispMUA extension installed, the message used to write this text, that's showing that you were using Firefox to compose your message. Since I know about spoofing, I know that's what you're doing, but there may be occasions when you send mail, it might cause an issue with showing the identity of a browser, rather than a legitimate mail client. With that in mind, I tend to prefer doing more granular spoofing in places that need it rather than doing it globally. I have a strong liking for PrefBar, and I have nearly a dozen different UAs available for spoof. Besides getting past sites that don't behave correctly when they see a Seamonkey UA, I've found a couple other places where spoofing is really useful. One is for software distributors that support multiple operating systems, where they use UA sniffing to determine what system you're running, and when you download, they'll give you the download that corresponds to your platform. For non-technical users, that's useful, in making sure that the correct download is delivered, but for me, I have an extensive collection of downloads that I use for support purposes. By using spoofing, I can tell a site that I'm running a Mac, and get a Mac download, even if I'm using Windows. I also find that spoofing is useful when testing my own web page, to make sure that the page handles different UAs correctly. With PrefBar, I can do on-the-fly changes of what I'm showing to a site, and then switch back to the default Seamonkey UA when I no longer need spoofing. As an example, I have added some new entries where I changed the string accordingly with host I reach; general.useragent.override.google.com -- string set to: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:67.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/67.0 I've done precisely this with Google. That one clears the display quirk that's in Google's search bar. For some reason, Google doesn't like a Firefox UA that shows the name of Firefox-derived project. They want only stock Firefox. If I remember correctly, PaleMoon has the same issue as Seamonkey. I also do spoofing with general.useragent.override for a couple of financial sites that were complaining about Firefox 52 when I was running Seamonkey 2.49.x. Since I visit those sites frequently enough, I don't want to bother with turning spoofing on and off in PrefBar, so it's worth it to me to do site-specific spoofs. Since I've moved to Seamonkey 2.53, I'm guessing that those sites are no longer complaining (at least for now), but since the spoofing that I was using is for the then-beta of 2.53.1 (which shows Firefox 60), I haven't bothered to update or remove. I'll probably want to update when 2.53.2 gets out the door. Smith ___ support-seamonkey mailing list support-seamonkey@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-seamonkey
Re: Useragent question - in about:config
NFN Smith wrote on 14/04/2020 2:20 AM: Ray_Net wrote: As an example, I have added some new entries where I changed the string accordingly with host I reach; general.useragent.override.google.com -- string set to: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:67.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/67.0 I've done precisely this with Google. That one clears the display quirk that's in Google's search bar. For some reason, Google doesn't like a Firefox UA that shows the name of Firefox-derived project. They want only stock Firefox. If I remember correctly, PaleMoon has the same issue as Seamonkey. By-the By, it seems some sites would work correctly for Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:67.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/67.0 SM/2.53.1 whilst others would require Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:67.0) Gecko/20100101 SM/2.53.1 Firefox/67.0 It seems it may matter which is first and/or which is last! Whilst others would work correctly for either! -- Daniel Win7 User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 SeaMonkey/2.49.5 Build identifier: 20190609032134 Linux User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 SeaMonkey/2.49.1 Build identifier: 20171015235623 ___ support-seamonkey mailing list support-seamonkey@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-seamonkey
Re: Useragent question - in about:config
Daniel wrote: As an example, I have added some new entries where I changed the string accordingly with host I reach; general.useragent.override.google.com -- string set to: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:67.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/67.0 I've done precisely this with Google. That one clears the display quirk that's in Google's search bar. For some reason, Google doesn't like a Firefox UA that shows the name of Firefox-derived project. They want only stock Firefox. If I remember correctly, PaleMoon has the same issue as Seamonkey. By-the By, it seems some sites would work correctly for Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:67.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/67.0 SM/2.53.1 whilst others would require Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:67.0) Gecko/20100101 SM/2.53.1 Firefox/67.0 It seems it may matter which is first and/or which is last! Whilst others would work correctly for either! Just curious -- are you abbreviating Seamonkey as "SM" in your own use, or are you just doing that for reference here? Underneath, what's going on is sites that are checking for certain things, usually using scripting, but not always. Most tend to look just for an acceptable Firefox version. For some, having it anywhere in the UA string is acceptable, but some may be looking in a specific location, either at the end of the string (which is easier to find), but I suspect some want to see "Firefox" immediately following the Gecko designation (and nothing in-between). I haven't used PaleMoon enough to see how its default UA behaves, where "Gecko" is replaced with "Goanna" (a Gecko fork), followed by "Firefox", then "PaleMoon". And I haven't interacted enough with PaleMoon users to know if they have occasional need to do spoofing. I noted that user agent sniffing normally is scripting based, because sites also tend to use the scripting to deliver a warning, often by redirecting to a full page. I probably don't see as much of that as I could, because of my liberal use of NoScript. However, there's other ways of sites blocking access to browsers they don't want to see. In server configs, there's a file called .htaccess that's used for a variety of things (especially page redirects), but it's also possible to use regular expressions to evaluate the presented User Agent string. If the string is deemed unacceptable, then the connection is simply dropped. I use this methodology on the page I maintain. Our site gets a lot of bot-based traffic that shows forged UAs. And a lot of the forging is sloppy -- a common problem is misspelling, or improper punctuation or spacing, stuff that would never be found in a valid UA. One that I've seen a lot of traffic on is one that purports to be "Firefox/40.1". That version was never valid, and so I drop any connections where I see that designation. I also drop connections for really old versions of browsers, because chances are much higher that they're being shown by bots than than legitimate users. This is one of the places where I find the ability to do spoofing on the fly to be really useful. If I'm testing my filters for UA handling, it's really easy to set a UA string for what I'm filtering for, and then I can actually test whether my server will accept or reject that particular string. With this in mind, it's generally a good idea to not get too creative in what you put in a UA string. For some sites, a too-unique string might be something that a site admin decides is evidence of bot activity, and use that as a reason to drop or refuse your connection. And there's a few out there that are sensitive enough about tracking and personal identification issues that they either spoof all the time, or do random shuffling of UA strings, as a consideration of what ends up in server logs. I don't know that there's a way of doing that kind of thing in Seamonkey, but I do recall seeing somewhere that there are people who may be doing that with other browsers. Smith ___ support-seamonkey mailing list support-seamonkey@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-seamonkey
Re: Useragent question - in about:config
NFN Smith wrote on 15/04/2020 1:45 AM: Daniel wrote: It seems it may matter which is first and/or which is last! Whilst others would work correctly for either! Just curious -- are you abbreviating Seamonkey as "SM" in your own use, or are you just doing that for reference here? Yeap!! I noticed that just after I hit the "Send" button but wasn't quick enough to click the "Cancel" button!! I did consider sending a follow up post with the correction but then I figured my Versions were listed in my sig. file (Checks to see that that information was correct ;-) Yeap!), so I didn't bother sending the correction! -- Daniel Win7 User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 SeaMonkey/2.49.5 Build identifier: 20190609032134 Linux User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 SeaMonkey/2.49.1 Build identifier: 20171015235623 ___ support-seamonkey mailing list support-seamonkey@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-seamonkey
Re: Useragent question - in about:config
Daniel wrote: Geoff Welsh wrote on 13/04/2020 8:41 AM: closing out my own question, thanks to some google searches; the new preference to add in about:config to spoof at will is; general.useragent.override view message source on this post and it /should/ say Firefox 74 you can put Chrome or webkit or whatever you want. :-) Yeap, I see your User Agent as Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.13; rv:61.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/74.0 but did you notice the pref you listed was "general.useragent.override" not the "general.useragent.override.seamonkey" that you quoted first time around. Yes, they changed it. As I understand it, now that you have it set to "general.useragent.override", ever site you visit will think you are using FF V78, not SM. Or whatever I put there. That was the first copy and paste I had ready. ___ support-seamonkey mailing list support-seamonkey@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-seamonkey
