many websites recognize my Mac as Windows when using Firefox
Even though I use a Mac, my computer is often recognized as a Windows PC when I use Firefox. For example just got this email from ResearchGate
David, there was new login to your account
xxxxx@gmail.com
Firefox 91.0 on Win10 Sep 15 at 9:40 AM (America/New_York) United States If you don't recognize this activity, review your recently used devices
This has resulted in big arguments with AV support and others who keep sending me Windows installers, for example. I finally learned just to use Safari, but this is bewildering and I haven't found an explanation or solution anywhere.
Dave
Chosen solution
Having learned something about the terminology, I found the answer to the issue here https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-reset-default-user-agent-firefox
Skaityti atsakymą kartu su kontekstu 👍 0All Replies (11)
Type about:support in the address bar and press Enter. Under the main banner, press the button; Copy Text To Clipboard.. Now in the Reply Box on the forum page, do a right-click in the box and select Paste.
If the data is too big, do not worry. It's the top part we need to look at.
This will show us your system details. No Personal Information Is Collected.
Start Firefox using Troubleshoot(Safe) Mode {web link}
A small dialog should appear. Click Start In Troubleshoot(Safe) Mode (not Refresh). Is the problem still there?
Unfortunately since ResearchGate now recognizes my login machine -- whether MacOS or Windows, logging in successfully doesn't really provide any information.
It occurred to me that I had trouble with Zoom a while ago, and I just tried getting the Zoom application in Safe Mode. I still get directed to the Windows installer.
Since you posted the question with a Safari user agent, we can't tell if this is possibly a problem with the user agent.
You can check out at the browserspy website how websites see you:
Actually about:support in my browser yields this
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; rv:91.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/91.0
I haven't sent anything from Safari.
Not an area that I really know anything about, but it looks to me like the User Agent might be the problem.
How can I change this?
Chosen Solution
Having learned something about the terminology, I found the answer to the issue here https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-reset-default-user-agent-firefox
How did you end up with the "Windows NT 10.0;" user agent ?
- Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; rv:91.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/91.0
It is a bug with privacy.resist set to TRUE. Changed it to FALSE as suggested in the support article and it shifted to Mac. Put privacy.resist back to TRUE and Windows again. Don't know why it happens but it does.
I thought that enabling Resist Fingerprinting would keep the platform as I'm getting this UA on Linux, so it sounds weird that you get a Windows 10 UA on Mac.
- Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:91.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/91.0
See also:
#elif defined(XP_MACOSX) # define SPOOFED_UA_OS "Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.15" # define SPOOFED_APPVERSION "5.0 (Macintosh)" # define SPOOFED_OSCPU "Intel Mac OS X
I should have read a bit further, so for the HTTP User-Agent header they always send "Windows NT 10.0"
// For the HTTP User-Agent header, we use a simpler set of spoofed values // that do not reveal the specific desktop platform. #if defined(MOZ_WIDGET_ANDROID) # define SPOOFED_HTTP_UA_OS "Android 10; Mobile" #else # define SPOOFED_HTTP_UA_OS "Windows NT 10.0" #endif