Hi CyberMage, did this recently change so that you used to have this problem only Firefox, but in recent months, you started having the same problem in Chrome?

Most likely the problem is the screen resolution your browser is reporting to the site. Many sites now have a so-called "responsive" design that generates different layouts depending on your screen resolution. For example, if a site is maximized, it may have a desktop layout, while if you reduce the size of its window, it may switch to a tablet or phone layout, depending on the shape and size.

What isn't obvious is that Firefox recomputes the resolution based on your zoom level, and therefore using a higher zoom level fits less content and can trigger a mobile layout.

If you visit a couple sites that have this problem and zoom out (hold down Ctrl and tap the - key a couple times), does the layout change? On some sites, you might need to reload (Ctrl+r) the page to see a difference. (On some sites, you might even have to clear their cookies if they stored a preference for mobile layout in a cookie.)

Does that make any difference?

One other possible issue is the touch interface. Sites may not realize that not every user with a touchscreen wants a simplified layout with big finger-sized buttons.

This should be disabled in current versions of Firefox for desktop operating systems due to various site incompatibilities, but you may want to check that here:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste touch and pause while the list is filtered

(3) If the dom.w3c_touch_events.enabled preference is bolded and "user set" to some value other than zero, right-click it and choose Reset to restore the default value of 0 (or you can double-click it and edit the value to 0).

• 0 = disable (default)
• 1 = enable
• 2 = auto-detect touch support

There might still be other ways for sites to detect a touchscreen, but I don't have a device to experiment with...

Touch events are disabled (i.e., Value=0) While my PC does have a touchscreen, I don't see any real difference when I change the magnification factor.

All that really is a pain in the posterior is that Paypal (for example) does not allow me to do the things with my accounts that I need to do ... they tell me to go do it on a desktop, but my desktop tells me that any browser I use is actually a phone. An android, I suspect because that is how I found out that I can't do what I need to do on my phone ... I can only send money but anything else I need a desktop.

But understand that this is not the only place I have this problem. NYTimes is another example (but not so problematic) as well as several others that don't come as quickly to mind.

Firefox, Chrome, makes no difference... I want the www.(insertwebsitenamehere).com, and what I get is mobile.(insertwebsitenamehere).com or ' m.(insertwebsitenamehere).com

BTW, jscher2000, thanks for your prompt response ... it does much to assuage my frustration!

Getting redirected to the m.whatever.com address is more extreme than I imagined. At least in those cases, there's often a link at the bottom of the page or on the page's menu to view the full/desktop version of the site. This should cause the site to set a cookie so in the future you are not redirected on that site (until cookies are cleared).

It's still a puzzle why the site wants to redirect you in the first place.

And no ... as is the case with both the paypal website and the NYTimes website, there is no link at the bottom that allows a choice of having the desktop website as an option. The only place I've found on the NYTimes website that they offer that choice is in their help section, under subscriptions, I believe.

This is terribly frustrating... I thought I had an answer when I learned about that "useragent" thing. By a deliberate forcing to change it to a desktop compatible string, I was able to see some appreciable result... but nothing of any real value to my issues of being a desktop yet having only the available features of a lightweight mobile device...  :-/ >:-(

What is your user agent string? I have a test page where that information appears in red: https://www.jeffersonscher.com/res/jstest.php

What I get is the standard ID: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:50.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/50.0

That clearly indicates Windows 7 (NT 6.1 => 7).

FYI ... When I first started playing around with the UA string several weeks ago, I found that while it did change the behavior of my desktop web experience by making it more like my android, I could not make it work the other way round. In short, I could make my desktop into something more pseudo-android, but it does not seem possible to make my desktop more like an über-desktop; that is, I could not strip away the android identity my desktop has somehow been joined with, no matter how I massaged that useragent string. This latter state holds true for both Firefox and chrome. Oh -- and chrome was totally unresponsive to anything I did with the useragent string, in spite of my following the rather convoluted instructions which changed the UA for that web page session only.

Your test page reveals the following as my Useragent string (I think it's just like yours; I'm sending the complete http headers info... except I've blackened my IP address... If you really need that I'll send it via email):

=================

Data from HTTP Headers

Your browser's request includes the following data:

Browser "User Agent" string: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:50.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/50.0 Your public IP address: ▓▒▓▒▓▒▓ (REMOTE_ADDR) Referring page: Not set or empty

Full HTTP Request Headers: Host: www.jeffersonscher.com User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:50.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/50.0 Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8 Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.5 Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br dnt: 1 upgrade-insecure-requests: 1

=================

I really mean it when I say I'm grateful and appreciative... I have tried getting help for various things before, and have never gotten as much responsive and pertinent input from anyone since before -- oh, before AOL, anyway. and then it was on BBS's and 52kbaud modems... All my problems seem to have been scrap-piled at least 3 years earlier and my cries for help were either ignored, or ran up headlong at light speed into the stone cold cliff of a locked topic where a new one on the same problem was the epitome of futility.

So thank you. Even if we cant solve this, I owe you a beer, or a drink or even a Starbuck's (my personal fave) coffee.

Hi CyberMage, I think it's clear that the user agent string set in your browsers is definitely not the problem and almost certainly is not the solution. It also seems that it is getting through to websites and not being stripped by a privacy-minded firewall, at least judging from my site. But I noticed the

Referring page: Not set or empty

which usually has the URL of this thread if you follow a link from the website. Maybe you used a link in an email notification. If you did use a link from the site, possibly your Firefox or your firewall is stripping the referring site information.

I'm running out of reasons for a site to redirect... what are they looking for?

If you haven't already, could you test in Firefox's Safe Mode? In Safe Mode, Firefox temporarily deactivates extensions, hardware acceleration, and some other advanced features to help you assess whether these are causing the problem.

If Firefox is not running: Hold down the Shift key when starting Firefox.

If Firefox is running: You can restart Firefox in Safe Mode using either:

• "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Restart with Add-ons Disabled
• Help menu > Restart with Add-ons Disabled

and OK the restart.

Both scenarios: A small dialog should appear. Click "Start in Safe Mode" (not Refresh).

Any improvement?

I think I copied and pasted the link you sent to email ... Chrome is my default browser, primarily because it (is this heresy? Or blasphemy??) starts much faster... But honestly, I'm quite fed up with goggle and all of it's corporate tentacles, so ... I do like firefox better and more importantly I believe and support it's philosophy 100% -- if only in thought and word of mouth when it's the best I can do...

Anyway ... is this, the following, more in line with what you expect:

==========================

Data from HTTP Headers

Your browser's request includes the following data:

Browser "User Agent" string: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:50.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/50.0 Your public IP address: ▒▓█▓▒░▒▓█▓▒░(REMOTE_ADDR) Referring page: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1151804

Full HTTP Request Headers: Host: www.jeffersonscher.com User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:50.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/50.0 Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8 Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.5 Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br Referer: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1151804 dnt: 1 upgrade-insecure-requests: 1 Cookie: __utma=246471583.370999200.1482871369.1482871369.1482871369.1; __utmb=246471583.2.9.1482871369; __utmc=246471583; __utmz=246471583.1482871369.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none); __utmt=1

==========================

I have not tried Firefox safe mode, however the session I am now running was started per your instructions with the shift key, and a confirmation message was presented, so...

Very, very unfortunate and sad ... I went to the New York Times website via WwW.nytimes.com and was redirected to mobile.nytimes.com. But thats not the sad part ...

The times lead story was reporting the death of Carrie Fisher... a sad segue, but back on track ... now.

I needed to call paypal today because this problem wrecks havoc with the desktop site. Today (despite settings to the contrary) the Paypal desktop site came up in ... French. But I never did parlez vous Françée.. Fiancée.,. whatever -- ever. And all paypal could tell me was it's not their problem. In so many words...

I can't believe this has been sitting here all day, because I forgot to press the POST button,..!

Wow, sorry to hear about Carrie Fisher.

Maybe there is some network-related reason for Firefox to get mobile pages.

Do you connect directly to sites or do you use any kind of intermediary, such as a proxy server, private VPN, or peer-to-peer network (e.g., Hola)?

Are you using a wired service provider (e.g., cable, DSL, etc.) or a mobile provider (e.g., 4G hotspot/mi-fi)?

NONE of these suggestions solve anything. Sorry. As soon as our new computers are installed, I intend NOT to use Firefox. Not user friendly, difficult to navigate, and no help/support to resolve issues. I have worked on some idiotic systems in the past, including airline reservation systems that were designed by engineers but never intended for the function of reservations (UGH), and Firefox tops them all for not being useful. Very sorry, but can't wait to get this off my system.

Since we haven't discovered the source of this problem yet, to see if it is a customized setting, the other approach would be to test in a new profile.

New Profile Test

This takes about 3 minutes, plus the time to test the problem sites.

Inside Firefox, type or paste about:profiles in the address bar and press Enter/Return to load it.

Click the Create a New Profile button, then click Next. Assign a name like Dec2016, ignore the option to relocate the profile folder, and click the Finish button.

After creating the profile, scroll down to it and click the Set as default profile button below that profile, then scroll back up and click the Restart normally button. (There are some other buttons, but I think those are still "under construction" so please ignore them.)

Firefox should exit and then start up using the new profile, which will just look brand new.

Do the problem sites still redirect to mobile in the new profile?

When you are done with the experiment, open the about:profiles page again, click the Set as default profile button for your normal profile, then click the Restart normally button to get back to it.

Since I don’t intend to use Firefox any longer than absolutely necessary, no thank you. I feel that those who supply a product need to fix their own problems from their end and not expect users to try to correct them. That’s backwards thinking and not effective.

Thank you, and have a blessed new year.

Hi JOtt_FBC, my comment wasn't addressed to you since it was already clear you just joined this thread to be negative, and were neither seeking to be of service to the person who started this thread nor seeking to participate in finding the source of this problem on your own systems. Good luck with the new ones.