IceCat's user-agent reports Windows NT 6.1

IceCat's user-agent reports Windows NT 6.1

[Peter Neidhardt]

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The complete user-agent:

	Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/52.0

That can't be true on GuixSD, right? :p
Packaging error?

-- 
Peter Neidhardt

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Re: IceCat's user-agent reports Windows NT 6.1

[Clément Lassieur]

Peter Neidhardt <pe.neidhardt@googlemail.com> writes:

> The complete user-agent:
>
> 	Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/52.0
>
> That can't be true on GuixSD, right? :p
> Packaging error?

It's not a packaging error.  I think it's a feature: Windows computers
are more common so it makes the browser less identifiable.  It can be
changed in about:config (search for "useragent").

Re: IceCat's user-agent reports Windows NT 6.1

[Pierre Neidhardt]

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Sounds like a misfeature to me: lots of website use it to display the
right content depending on the OS the user is running (tutorials,
downloads, etc.).  Disclosing the OS family the user is running is
hardly a threat to privacy in my opinion.

Besides, isn't it deceptively advertising the dominance of a non-free
OS?  Doesn't sound quite GNU to me...

--
Pierre Neidhardt

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Re: IceCat's user-agent reports Windows NT 6.1

[Nils Gillmann]

Pierre Neidhardt transcribed 981 bytes:
> 
> Sounds like a misfeature to me: lots of website use it to display the
> right content depending on the OS the user is running (tutorials,
> downloads, etc.).  Disclosing the OS family the user is running is
> hardly a threat to privacy in my opinion.

This is to reduce fingerprinting. With Guix it's even more crucial because
the user base is (probably) rather small. Compare to what you can find about
Torbrowser's reasons for displaying the same string.

> Besides, isn't it deceptively advertising the dominance of a non-free
> OS?  Doesn't sound quite GNU to me...

Reducing fingerprinting is hardly advertisment.

> --
> Pierre Neidhardt

Re: IceCat's user-agent reports Windows NT 6.1, Re: IceCat's user-agent reports Windows NT 6.1

[Chris Marusich]

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Nils Gillmann <ng0@n0.is> writes:

> Reducing fingerprinting is hardly advertisment.

I agree with Nils: the IceCat default user agent string is accomplishing
its intended purpose, which is to protect users' privacy by default by
obscuring your fingerprint.  You can change it if you want to.

Pierre Neidhardt <ambrevar@gmail.com> writes:

> Sounds like a misfeature to me: lots of website use it to display the
> right content depending on the OS the user is running (tutorials,
> downloads, etc.).  Disclosing the OS family the user is running is
> hardly a threat to privacy in my opinion.

On this topic, you might find the following humorous article to be
interesting:

https://webaim.org/blog/user-agent-string-history/

The meaning of the user agent string is pretty muddy in today's world!

-- 
Chris

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Re: IceCat's user-agent reports Windows NT 6.1, Re: IceCat's user-agent reports Windows NT 6.1

[Nils Gillmann]

Chris Marusich transcribed 1.8K bytes:
> Nils Gillmann <ng0@n0.is> writes:
> 
> > Reducing fingerprinting is hardly advertisment.
> 
> I agree with Nils: the IceCat default user agent string is accomplishing
> its intended purpose, which is to protect users' privacy by default by
> obscuring your fingerprint.  You can change it if you want to.
> 
> Pierre Neidhardt <ambrevar@gmail.com> writes:
> 
> > Sounds like a misfeature to me: lots of website use it to display the
> > right content depending on the OS the user is running (tutorials,
> > downloads, etc.).  Disclosing the OS family the user is running is
> > hardly a threat to privacy in my opinion.
> 
> On this topic, you might find the following humorous article to be
> interesting:
> 
> https://webaim.org/blog/user-agent-string-history/
> 
> The meaning of the user agent string is pretty muddy in today's world!
> 
> -- 
> Chris


Offtopic, but gmail seems to have broken Mailinglist / Thread interaction now.
You are sending every reply with a double subject. Not that it's distracting,
but it would be great if it could be avoided.