1906240 - Revert Gecko/<version> to Gecko/<date> in Firefox Android's UA string to match Firefox desktop

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core :: Networking: HTTP, task)

Description

[Allen K]

Steps to reproduce:

Go somewhere that displays the useragent string (e.g., useragentstring.com)

Actual results:

Mozilla/5.0 (Android 13; Mobile; rv:127.0) Gecko/127.0 Firefox/127.0

Expected results:

Mozilla/5.0 (Android 13; Mobile; rv:127.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/127.0

Comment 1

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

Allen, thanks for the bug report.

This was an intentional change to the UA string in bug 588909 (back in 2012). The change was originally made on both Firefox desktop and Android, but it was reverted on desktop in bug 815743 because it broke some websites. I don't know what it wasn't reverted on Android at the same time; it probably should have been, but it wasn't and changing the UA string now might be risky.

While it would be nice for Firefox Android's and desktop's UA strings to use the same Gecko/ format, we probably shouldn't make this change until we know of a website that is confused by Firefox Android's Gecko/ version.

For future reference, here is where the User-Agent string code differs for Android:

https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/8fbb81f010ecedebcc5e7f4c97471d51af63b915/netwerk/protocol/http/nsHttpHandler.cpp#424-428