What is user agent used for?
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What is user agent used for?
A user agent is any software that retrieves and presents Web content for end users or is implemented using Web technologies. User agents include Web browsers, media players, and plug-ins that help in retrieving, rendering and interacting with Web content.
Is user agent a personal information?
For example, the User Agent string of a web browser can be combined with other data to identify an individual user. Location data for the same user is also considered PII: who else would go from your home address to your work address? Under the GDPR, PII includes, but is not limited to: User Agent strings.
What are the services provided by the user agent?
A user agent is a set of modules that retrieves Web resources, renders them, allows control of those processes, and communicates with other software.
What is an example of user agent?
Types of user agents Browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Google’s Chrome as well as Safari and Opera are examples of user agents. However, other applications can also act as user agents. Examples are: Crawlers: Googlebot, Yahoo!
Can user agent be spoofed?
A user-agent is an HTTP request header string identifying browsers, applications, or operating systems that connect to the server. The process is called user-agent spoofing. Yes, when a browser or any client sends a different user-agent HTTP header from what they are and fake it that is called spoofing.
What is the most common user agent?
Most Common User Agents
| percent | useragent |
|---|---|
| 5.5\% | Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/95.0.4638.69 Safari/537.36 |
| 5.1\% | Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/96.0.4664.55 Safari/537.36 |
Is a user-agent personal data under GDPR?
Couple an IP address with a browser user-agent, and you’ve got the basis for a strong unique fingerprint for a specific person. Under GDPR guidance, IP addresses are considered personal data because they can be used to identify an individual in a moment in time.
Can user-agent be spoofed?
Is Gmail a user-agent?
Your browser is a User Agent(UA) and Gmail or Outlook is a Mail User Agent(MUA). Your browser is not acting as an MUA. MUA is a separate program for interacting. A Mail User Agent (MUA), also referred to as an email client.
Which are two types of user agents?
User Agent Types: There are two types of user agents: command-driven and GUI- based.
Can User-Agent be spoofed?
How do I spoof a user-agent?
How to Change Your User-Agent on Chrome & Edge
- Right Click Anywhere in Webpage > Inspect. Alternatively, you can use CTR+Shift+I on Windows, Cmd + Opt +J on Mac.
- Choose More Tools > Network Conditions.
- Uncheck Select Automatically Checkbox.
- Choose One Among the Built-In User-Agents List.
What is a user agent?
User agents are the strings of text which specify the browser and operating system of web servers. User agents are present in HTTP headers when the browser wants to communicate with a server. Each browser has its specific user agent string and web servers utilize this information to deliver appropriate material across different operating systems.
How to detect the user’s user-agent string?
[normal] navigator.userAgent: This method reads the navigator object when the page load is finished. This is the most common method to detect the user’s actual user-agent string. [aggressive] navigator.userAgent: This method clones the “navigator” object exactly when page is about to render to prevent any external scripts from altering it later.
What is user agent sniffing and how does it work?
Arguably the most common use and misuse of user agent sniffing is to detect if the device is a mobile device. However, people too often overlook what they are really after. People use user agent sniffing to detect if the users’ device is touch-friendly and has a small screen so they can optimize their website accordingly.
Is it possible to detect the browser using user agent?
But browsers and standards are not perfect, and there are still some edge cases where detecting the browser is needed. Using the user agent to detect the browser looks simple, but doing it well is, in fact, a very hard problem. This document will guide you in doing this as correctly as possible.