Changing User Agent means simulating the connection to a website with a different device than the one actually used. The user agent is the information that the device communicates every time it requires the opening of a website, in order to obtain, if possible, the most suitable version of the site. For example, therefore, a site like this, www.navigaweb.net, if it is opened from a mobile phone it looks slightly different than it appears on the PC. Other sites much more important than this, however, may have a radically different functioning and just think, for example, of Facebook and Twitter which in the mobile version are much lighter and essential.
Changing User Agents can be useful, mainly for two reasons:
First of all it is useful for developers and bloggers to try mobile versions of websites and see how they look on iPhone, iPad, Android smartphone with a 6-inch screen, on an Android tablet etc.
For all, however, changing user agents is useful for connecting to the internet with the PC and opening sites in a mobile version, lighter and faster to load, especially when using a limited data connection, to consume less network bandwidth (for example also when using the smartphone as a modem).
READ ALSO: Force the desktop mode of a site on Android and iPhone
In this article we see how to change user agents on the main browsers of PC Windows and Mac, to see the sites in a mobile version to do tests or to connect to the internet using the minimum bandwidth, loading the sites as quickly as possible because they are in reduced versions.
1) Change user agent with Google Chrome
Without needing to install anything, you can change the Chrome User Agent from its development tools, which are opened by pressing the CTRL - Shift - I keys together or by clicking on the menu button by going to Other tools> Development tools .
In the development toolbox, top left, press the mobile phone button and select the device from the drop-down menu at the top.
After making the choice, for example iPhone 6, update the page by pressing the Chrome button at the top left, the one with the circular arrow that goes back.
This setting is, however, only temporary and only works when you keep the developer tools pane open.
To always keep a user agent other than the default one active and to see all the sites in a mobile version from a PC, you can instead install the User Agent Switcher extension for Chrome. With this extension it is easy to choose from which device to simulate the connection for all websites and you can choose whether to display a site in the iPhone version, in the Android version, in the iPad or tablet version or in the normal Desktop version.
To surf the internet by emulating a mobile phone, you can always use the Chrome Mobile Browser Emulator extension where you can even choose which mobile phone to emulate. This is ideal both to try the mobile version of a website, and to navigate from the PC as you would from an Android smartphone with Opera Mobile, also because the browser window can be resized and enlarged.
2) Changing User Agent in Firefox is possible using the configuration page.
Then open a new Firefox tab, write about: config on the address bar, press Enter and authorize if required.
Type in the useragent search field and then look for the general.useragent.override option which will probably not be present. To create the preference, right-click on the white space of the about: config page, choose New> String, give the name general.useragent.override and enter the value of the chosen user agent as the string value, which for iPhone 7, for example, is:
Mozilla / 5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 10_2_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit / 602.4.6 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version / 10.0 Mobile / 14D27 Safari / 602.1
This setting will be active for all open sites and even after closing and reopening Firefox.
NOTE: Almost all common user agents can be found on this site.
For Firefox you can also install an extension, to do it first, as User Agent Switcher that allows you to change the device dynamically.
3) Change user Agent to Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer
Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer have the user agent switcher in their development tools and are almost identical. To open the development tools just press the F12 key on the keyboard or go to settings. The development tools open in a separate pane at the bottom of the window. In this box, there is the Emulation tab from which you can choose one of the already configured mobile devices or manually enter a user agent. This setting is always temporary and only applies to the current tab and only when the development tools pane is open.
4) Change User Agent in Safari on Mac
This option is available in the hidden Safari development menu.
To activate it, go to the Safari menu > Preferences> Advanced and activate the Show Development menu option in the menu bar .
Now click on the Development menu and under User Agent select the device from which you want to simulate the internet connection.
With the Other option, you can write the code of a different user agent. This option is valid only for the current tab.
With this mode it also becomes possible to use the smartphone as a modem for the PC or use the iPhone as a hotspot .
