741094 - Make XUL Fennec follow mobile User Agent plan (have same UA as Native Fennec)

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #700595 +++

Bug 671634 added a "Mobile" token to the UA string for small form factor devices. The token intentionally isn't included for tablets.

The patch didn't remove the Fennec/10.0 token from the UA string. I suggest the Fennec token be now removed, because:
 1) In the small form factor case, the Fennec token is redundant with the Mobile token and bloats each HTTP request unnecessarily.
 2) In the tablet case the Fennec token may lead to undesirable detection as a small form factor device if the site author thinks that "Fennec" equals phone.

Comment 1

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Attachment: patch

Comment 2

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Dao: is it correct to say that:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Fennec/User_Agent
is now being followed for Native Fennec, but not for XUL Fennec, and that this patch makes the XUL Fennec UA follow the plan correctly?

If so, sounds good to me.

Gerv

Comment 3

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to Gervase Markham [:gerv] from comment #2)
> Dao: is it correct to say that:
> https://wiki.mozilla.org/Fennec/User_Agent
> is now being followed for Native Fennec, but not for XUL Fennec, and that
> this patch makes the XUL Fennec UA follow the plan correctly?

yes

Comment 4

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

OK. 

Gerv

Comment 6

[Matt Brubeck (:mbrubeck)]

This change was previously r- in bug 700595 partly because XUL Fennec and Android Fennec are separate apps for add-on compatibility purposes, and AMO uses the UA to detect the app.  So this patch will depend on changing AMO to use some other detection logic...

Comment 7

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

I filed bug 750412 for AMO.

Comment 8

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

Also note that Youtube sends special content on Android when playing videos which causes Fennec (XUL and Native) to open the video in a local Youtube player app. This is the preferred UX.

Youtube however uses UA sniffing and only sends the content for "Fennec/XX" in the UA. Fennec Native currently sends this token, appended to the UA, in order to get the desired UX. We are in the process of getting Youtube to change it's UA sniffing.