Mon
25
Jul '11

Honeycomb tip: Changing the browser’s user agent string

I’ve just spent the weekend getting my new Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 all setup – which included downloading a couple of browsers. I’ve been using the Dolphin browser on my Android phones for quite some time, and really liked it because of the fact that it can be set to identify itself as a desktop browser. While I appreciate an optimized mobile experience on my phone, there are times when I want to see the “real” web. Unfortunately, on many sites, user agent sniffing rolls my device back to the mobile experience – hence the beauty of being able to set the user agent string in the Dolphin browser. This problem is even more pronounced on tablets, which are identified as “Android” and therefore get rolled to the mobile site.

Sadly, the Dolphin browser is not really optimized for Honeycomb, and its interface can look a little small on large tablets. So I have found myself using the native browser more and more. (more…)

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