Database Users

Browser Desktop Mode questions.

Ok, I have read literally hundreds of posts concerning desktop vs mobile mode in the browser. I have tried several browsers, and have switched them all into desktop mode via the settings. But, none, including the stock browser and Dolphin seem to work as promised. So, I have several questions:
1. What is it that allows a website to recognize an android phone or tablet and an
ipod touch as a mobile device?
2. Is there any way to permanently change "whatever" so that all websites
recognize my tablet and ipod touch as a desktop?

I'm using opera mobile and all pages works fine on desktop mode

xamilek555 said:
I'm using opera mobile and all pages works fine on desktop mode
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I tried one version of Opera last week and had no luck. Today, I downloaded Opera Mobile as you suggested and it worked just fine. Thanks for the suggestion.
But, the still should be a permanent fix for all Browsers. And, I would still like to know how a website recognizes a mobile device.

I believe they check the OS, not the browser, then redirect accordingly.

Running Honney Vil and stock browser and not seeing that problem, so probably does check the os, don't really know.

This is all based on what your browser "broadcasts" to the web server. I remember way back in the day, some custom ROMs had an option in the settings menu, even on the native browser, to set your browser type to one of many options, including "Android OS", "BlackBerry", "IE", "FireFox" etc... Most web sites are the ones in control of which page to display to you based on what browser it detects hitting the page. Below is an example of one of my web site's access log
Code:
[IP Masked} - - [24/Aug/2011:14:55:57 -0400] "GET /forums/viewtopic.php?p=28441 HTTP/1.1" 200 11347 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Baiduspider/2.0; +http://www.baidu.com/search/spider.html)"
[IP Masked] - - [24/Aug/2011:14:56:09 -0400] "POST /forums/posting.php?mode=reply&f=11&t=2900 HTTP/1.1" 200 3144 "http://[URL Masked]/forums/posting.php?mode=reply&f=11&t=2900" "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.3.3; en-us; DROID X2 Build/4.5.1A-DTN-117-15) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1"
It's from those logs where it says things like "Android 2.3.3" that tells a server which site to load. Unfortunately, most developers have hard coded anything as "Android" to be shown the mobile browser. Other browsers, like Dolphin and Opera, are either broadcasting a different type of browser, or give the option to.

I have the settings in the stock browser set to viewing mode:desktop (under the advanced tab of the browser settings) and have not come accross any pages that get redirected to mobile. I'm running stock 3.1

Right, you send USER_AGENT info when you connect to a site and based on that - typically what the OS is - the site can redirect.

With 3.0.1 you had to type about:debug in the browser to get the debug menu in settings and there you could change the user agent string. In 3.1 we have that in the advanced menu but I still prefer the old way;-). Don't forget to clear the cache after you do that because the browser might have cached the redirect to the mobile site.

Thanks for all the info. I have the stock browser, Dolphin and Opera Mobile. I have the user agent configured to Desktop in all 3 browsers. All 3 work on most, but not all sites. Only Opera works on all sites that I have tried. It is very disconcerting for sure as I really prefer the stock browser.

jostarr said:
Thanks for all the info. I have the stock browser, Dolphin and Opera Mobile. I have the user agent configured to Desktop in all 3 browsers. All 3 work on most, but not all sites. Only Opera works on all sites that I have tried. It is very disconcerting for sure as I really prefer the stock browser.
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Well, then it goes back to what I posted about the web sites themselves properly delivering the right site based on the user agent (thanks for reminding me of the name user agent gammaRascal!). The web designer has to write code to account for all the various user agents.

There are some other differences too. Try this website in the stock browser,
dolphin and Opera: http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=nyy
With the stock browser, the standings right below the picture on the left, is not complete.
with Dolphin, all looks like as on my PC.
with Opera, the page does not fit the screen.

Best browser for rooted KF?? (Silk, Dolphin, or Opera)

Which browser is your favorite for your rooted kindle fire and which seems the fastest? Thx

I haven't tried Dolphin but seem to be flipping back and forth between silk and opera. Had some issues with opera loading sites properly (i.e. my google apps mail account?) but the thing I like most about opera is the dynamic resizing of content to fit the screen - makes browsing a dream - no horizontal scrolling required! Silk doesn't do this. Use opera on my other computers also so am able to sync all my bookmarks which is nice. Now only wish they supported LastPass for my passwords.
I haven't noticed any appreciable speed difference between the 2 browsers.

I use Opera Mobile most of the time. I have not tried Dolphin in a long time and never on my Fire.

tried them all
I've tried most browsers and I prefer dolphin, it seems to be the quickest and some nice little extras.
I'm rooted and running CM7.. very smooth with not many issues..

I have to use all 3 depending on the website
Sent from my Kindle Fire using xda premium

Another vote for Dolphin. Maxthon second or Firefox with alot of the add-ons...

My personal preference is dolphin. I use it on all my android devices.

I'd use dolphin if there was a way to keep the tabs on the top

i like dolphin

Support the open web, use Firefox! Besides, you'll be surprised at how fast it is, and since it uses the same codebase as the desktop version there is little difference between the desktpp and mobile web. And having access to all your bookmarks through sync, and the awesome screen really puts all the other browsers to shame. Really the only competition Firefox has is Chrome and the stock Android browser, except Google has a vested interest in not allowing ad-blocking plugins, so I find I spend more time waiting for Chrome to load a page than Firefox because the ads are slowing it down.
Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk

I use the Firefox Beta because of adblock and sync. (I use Aurora on my desktop but I found the Android version a bit too buggy for my tastes...Nightly as well)
Honestly, I've tried every Android browser that I could find and they all kinda suck even with the user agent set to desktop.

Why does the browser report that it's Safari?

All browsers for all devices tell the web server what they are and what platform it's running on.
When I am on a website the Galaxy Tab (non-rooted, supplied browser) shows as the browser to be Safari on Linux.
If I change the User Agent in the browser to "desktop" (using the debug mode) the browser reports that it's Sarafi on Mac OS 10.
I used my company's web site to gather these statistics but you can easily see this on Facebook by digging into your settings.
My question is this: Why does Android do this? It creates misleading statistics showing that Safari is getting a much larger share of web page hits than it really is.
My company uses these statistics for marketing and web page development efforts and now has to rethink it knowing that some Android devices don't report themselves as Android browsers.

my guess would be because of webkit. however, there are some websites that identify browsers and devices properly, such as html5test.com

Jay Rock said:
my guess would be because of webkit. however, there are some websites that identify browsers and devices properly, such as html5test.com
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When I go to HTML5Test.com while the UAstring is set to desktop the site says:
"You are using an unknown browser that imitates Safari 5.0 on Mac OS X 10.6.3"

TabGuy said:
When I go to HTML5Test.com while the UAstring is set to desktop the site says:
"You are using an unknown browser that imitates Safari 5.0 on Mac OS X 10.6.3"
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Well isn't that what changing the UAstring is supposed to do? Imitate another browser in order to get a certain format from a page?

Chrome Development For WP8

Lots of development for Chrome on WP8. Shame it's not actually from Google itself but I'm cool with Chromium or some like ported to it.
Reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/windowsphone/comments/15wcxn/chrome_for_windows_phone_project/
Pocket PC:
http://www.1800pocketpc.com/chromeconcept/34410/

to try and clone the Google Chrome browser over IE's interface
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No, thanks

I've used chrome on my PC and I can honestly say that it sucks.

Chrome is best browser ever. Firefox sucks, about IE i don't want to hear.

IE, Firefox and Opera the best browsers, CHROME SUXX
robdevil said:
Chrome is best browser ever. Firefox sucks, about IE i don't want to hear.
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Ok dude...chrome is the best now tryIE10, FF or Opera and be amazed

robdevil said:
Chrome is best browser ever. Firefox sucks, about IE i don't want to hear.
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In Windows 8 Chrome sucks , IE rocks :laugh:

i really like to see IE Team open more to the developers, ABP team showed interest to make it available on IE, but they said it is deep locked.
While i am not saying that Tracker Protection from IE sucks, but it doesn't do a great job like what ABP can do for both Firefox and Chrome. One of them is the ability to block and skip YouTube short 30 sec Apps on any video that are enabled with ads. (while using HTML5 in trial mode can do pretty much the same thing, but not all videos on YouTube are able to be viewed under HTML5 mode)
And , being able to customize the browser to the way you want with persona or theme is a neat idea, even the bookmark bar on IE always show silver and it doesn't match the Windows Color Theme.
There are some features that i do miss from others browser as well on IE, one of them is the ability to drag and drop anything to the tab bar and the Browser will automatically open a new tab for you. (There are a lot of webpage doesn't format other website link under hyperlink).
I am just a little nitpicking about the visual of the browser, i don't doubt the performance of IE10 at all.

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