The K Desktop Environment

5.57. User Agent

5.57.1. Introduction

When Konqueror connects to a web site to retrieve information, some basic identifying information is sent to the web site in the form of a "User Agent" header.

Because of minor differences in the way that different web browsers function, web sites that rely too much on a single browser may sometimes not display as intended when viewed using another browser. Some web sites are smart enough to examine the contents of the user agent header and incorporate this information in the HTML code so that the content is displayed correctly regardless of the browser used.

However, you may find that some web sites refuse to function correctly unless you are using a browser recognized as "proper" by that site. In these cases, you may find it necessary to fool the web site by having Konqueror report itself to be another browser by means of the user agent header.

5.57.2. Use

In this module of the KDE control center, you can configure the type of browser that Konqueror will report itself to be. You can control this information by web site. Usually, in the list box that is labeled "Configured agent bindings:", there is only one entry, which gives the default identifying string in the user agent header.

To configure a new agent binding, type the name of the server in the text box at the top of the page, which is labeled "On server:". You can use the wildcard character "*" in this text box. The character "*", by itself, stands for all web sites, whereas the string "*.kde.org" stands for all web sites in the "kde.org" domain.

After typing the name of the server, type in the identifying string in the next text box, which is labeled "login as:". You will need to know what a valid string from the browser looks like. For example, you could type Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.0) in this text box.

You can click on an existing entry in the "Configured agent bindings" list, and then modify the contents of the text boxes.

Click the "Add" button to create a new user agent binding. The "Delete" button can be used to delete the selected entry in the list of configured agent bindings.

5.57.3. Section Author

This section written by:

Krishna Tateneni .