20941 - [Feature] Preference setting for User agent

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 6117

(Core :: Networking, defect, P3)

Description

[varada]

A pref is needed so that the user agent string gets the "C-" tag inserted and
then the value of the pref gets added as well -> in the form of Netscape 5.0
[en] C- <foo>.We can choose to have a different tag for mozilla sya "M-".

Comment 1

[Warren Harris]

Jud was working on user agent stuff.

Comment 2

[Chris McAfee]

Is this a request for a pref UI?  Or just a backend pref?
Is this m12 material?

Comment 3

[varada]

This is backend and not M12.

Comment 4

[Judson Valeski]

I can provide the pref. However user agent modification will only affect a
non-critical portion of the string. We obviously can't permit the entire string
to be modified.

Comment 5

[Chris McAfee]

over to valeski

Comment 6

[leger]

Resetting QA Contact.

Comment 7

[leger]

Bulk move of all Necko (to be deleted component) bugs to new Networking

component.

Comment 8

[Judson Valeski]

what is the "-C" tag?

The least obtrusive and standards/backwards compatible way of doing this is to
insert a user/pref definable string as a field in the comment portion of the
user agent string (see http://www.mozilla.org/build/user-agent-strings.html for
more info).

Comment 9

[Judson Valeski]

We've decided that the user agent cannot be modififed via a pref. Vendors would
grow the user agent string to no end.

Mozilla/5.0 ... (...RealAudio, Shockwave, Joe's homegrown) etc.

This is easily done via an installation program. There is a definable (via
platform specific branding) way to modify the miscelaneous portion of the UA
string).

Comment 10

[selmer (gone)]

Um, we didn't see this proliferation of garbage in the user agent in any prior
release, and they all had this pref.  This doesn't seem like a valid reason to
reject this request to make 5.0 work the same as 4.x.

If you don't implement what was requested, please give complete details on how
the alternative is supposed to work.  The CCK Wizard needs to be able to collect
the 10 character UA append string and then do something with it such that it
becomes part of the customized build.  This should NOT require any user
intervention, so I'll need an API or something to make this work.

Then again, maybe the pref would be easier :-)

Comment 11

[leger]

Clearing WON'T FIX resolution due to reopen.

Comment 12

[Warren Harris]

Waiting for Shaver to build the user agent string service. (Mike: let us know
if you're not going to do this now.)

Comment 13

[Judson Valeski]

cc'ing shaver. This won't be done until the initial UA work is complete (shaver,
do you have a bug for this?). Does anyone know how to make a pref mission
control editable only?

Comment 14

[Mike Shaver (:shaver emeritus)]

Mission-control-only?  Is that meaningful at all, in a world with source and
editable UI and behaviour?  Since there's no Mozilla Mission Control-alike in
any plans I've seen, I have to presume not.

I don't have a bug for the UA service yet, though I thought there would be one
already.

Comment 15

[Judson Valeski]

steve, I thought the only way to config the UA string in 4.x was to use mission
control. Otherwise we would have definately seen UA string abuse.

shaver, we'll come up w/ some mission control thinga-ma-jig, corporations need
it.

Comment 16

[selmer (gone)]

Mission Control is a red herring.  This only depends on the ability to set the
pref in some manner.  In the past it was in the netscape.cfg and one was
required to use Mission Control or CCK to change it.  (I'm not sure what would
happen if a user put it in their prefs.js, probably people just didn't think of
that as a way to change the user agent.)

It is sufficient for this pref to be in one of the default pref files or in the
netscape.cfg equivalent.  It would be better if it didn't come from the
prefs.js, but it's not worth attempting to enforce that.  If you want to avoid
long strings being added, feel free to limit the pref to N characters where N >=
10.  These "appended" characters continue to belong in the "comment" area
Jamie's paper describes, as was pointed out previously in this bug.

In any case, the purpose of this append string is explicitly the same as what
Jamie's proposal said - tracking.  Along those lines, automatically adding some
distinguishing characters such as "M-" to the appended string would allow
overall tracking of customized builds and that continues to be important.

As an aside, the old prefs architecture did not place limits on the setting of
this pref.  Rather, if it was set in the netscape.cfg and locked, then other
settings would be ignored.  Since creating a netscape.cfg required info and
tools from MCD or CCK, most people were unaware that it even existed.

CCK needs to continue to offer this feature since it's a fundamental part of
customization.  Any MCD equivalent would then build on what we provide.

Comment 17

[Judson Valeski]

-> shaver

Comment 18

[selmer (gone)]

Marking dup since these are the same basic request.  

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 6117 ***

Comment 19

[leger]

Marking Verified as a dup.