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ray-lothian / UserAgent-Switcher

A User-Agent spoofer browser extension that is highly configurable
https://webextension.org/listing/useragent-switcher.html
Mozilla Public License 2.0
923 stars 143 forks source link

Google always detects my O/S regardless of app settings #77

Open happeeshopper opened 4 years ago

happeeshopper commented 4 years ago

I'm using FF 75 (snap) on Xubuntu 20.04. If I highlight some text and right click 'search google for', google always detects that I'm using Ubuntu, even though I have a different O/S set in UAS.

In the address bar the google search link always says "&client=ubuntu". It still happens when js is disabled and google set to 'untrusted' with noscript.

ubuntuclient

WhyNotHugo commented 4 years ago

This plugin changes the User-Agent header that browsers sends on every request.

However, if your browser search settings are configured in a way that &client=ubuntu is appended, google will obviously know what browser you are using.

Think of this addon as being a fake id, and then presenting your real passport.

You probably want to fiddle with this and re-configure firefox to use Google again -- it probably won't include the client=ubuntu param in there.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/change-your-default-search-settings-firefox

happeeshopper commented 4 years ago

It was indeed the google search plugin that was forwarding the info to google. Apparently mozilla get paid hundreds of millions by google to have this search plugin installed by default. Nothing fishy there then...

Fortunately there is a way around it, and thats to remove the default google spyware extension and install one that does exactly the same job from [url=https://mycroftproject.com]here instead[/url]

WhyNotHugo commented 4 years ago

Odd, I don't have any such extension. Are you sure it's not bundled by your distribution rather than Mozilla?

In any case, that's the way Mozilla pays the bills. Regrettably, no other less-creepy entity is willing to give them money.