Extend User Agent String

Iron Contributor

Is it possible to extend the user agent string with custom values like in MSIE (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent) without using a extension?

 

We have a business need for this and it would be great to have this feature again.

5 Replies

@David Rubino David, could you please follow-up on this request? Would be much appreciated!

@stesch79 sorry about the long delay! I am reaching out to our User Agent String experts to see what they think about this. In the meantime, if you send us feedback using the smiley button, we'll get it tracked as a feature request. 

 

Thanks, 

 

-David

@David Rubino @stesch79 Unfortunately, we have no plans of adding this functionality back to Microsoft Edge since it was the root cause of a number of compatibility issues in the past; sites with corrupted/or misconfigured registry values would have unknown UA strings, which in turn caused sites to break.

 

What's the scenario you're currently using this functionality for? It'd be great to understand if there are other avenues that could be explored.

@scottlow  Appreciate you follow-up! The reason why we need this is already described in this article regarding WDAG https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Discussions/Activate-WDAG-in-Insider-Edge/m-p/811946#M8993

 

It's just adding a string to the Edge user agent string which is read by the proxy server. The proxy reads that string and allow Internet Access only this string is available. The registry key ist set, if certain security measures are as they should be. So we can make sure that no one is connecting to the internet that uses an unsecure computer. At least it helps to make sure, as this is not the only monitoring we have in place.

 

It's something very easy to implement (and if you know how, very easy to bypass). But, it provides a very convienient way to allow or block internet access based on some core security features. And it prevents unwanted applications to connect to the internet.

 

 

@scottlow 

the scenario we have is to allow our ERP portal to identify devices having SAPGUI or not. With that custom UA we can define the portal to present pages that will launch SAPGUI, otherwise present to user the webUI