FreeBSD user agent in Firefox and Chromium is Linux 64 bit

[LibreQuest]

I was curious as to what OS I appear as on different servers and check out a website called https://whatsmyos.com/ Both Chromium and Firefox show that I am running Linux. Luakit shows that I am running FreeBSD 64bit.

I wonder how many metrics are measuring web traffic and counting FreeBSD as Linux?

 

[Cath O'Deray]

I don't know when www/chromium changed, but www/firefox changed long ago.

… how many metrics are measuring web traffic and counting FreeBSD as Linux?

You can probably include Statcounter.

Operating System Market Share on World, and FreeBSD?

On Reddit have shared StatCounter's data for 2022, they have concluded, although as usual, there is leeway in the figures thrown out by the service. This is how the table looks in December 2022: . Windows: 75,34% . OS X: 14,66% . Unknown : 4,78% . Linux: 2,93% ...

forums.freebsd.org

 

[cracauer@]

That had to be done to reduce incidents of rejecting the browser based on "not supported" by too many sites.

And yes, this is what tanks FreeBSD in most of those "desktop os share" pseudo-stats.

 

[Cath O'Deray]

… www/firefox changed long ago.

I found the change upstream, RESOLVED FIXED on the 123 branch.

Ten months ago (not as long as I imagined … I might have been thinking of the 2018 changes for compatibility with AMO).

 

[Cath O'Deray]

… what tanks FreeBSD in most of those "desktop os share" pseudo-stats.

I know to not be fanatical about the stats, still it's interesting that FreeBSD was recently overtaken, first by NetBSD, then by OpenBSD, in North America.

 

[cracauer@]

I know to not be fanatical about the stats, still it's interesting that FreeBSD was recently overtaken, first by NetBSD, then by OpenBSD, in North America.

Do NetBSD and OpenBSD set the agent to "Linux" as well?

 

[malavon]

I regret this change. For badly-written websites there are user-agent changing extensions, at the very least it allows for reporting this to the webmaster(s). It would be great if there was an OPTION in the port to disable this behaviour. I don't like the idea of using local patches on my poudriere build, but restoring the User-Agent feels like quite innocent.
Important to know: apparently many Firefox extensions whitelist Linux and won't work anymore. Why does it always feel like the world is regressing?

Even then, recently I found that I was blocked from viewing a website of a large electronics-parts supplier due to "changes to prevent bots from navigating the website". A User-Agent that contains Linux was apparently already enough to trigger this. (Which is just an example what bad website design leads to, not related to the commits below).

More information can be found here:
PR 226919 and the two relevant commits: ab146876a894c84256e94c43b6955b2a2ad49313 and 5f83a8cdba544023d975dd1da704ac833836a062.
Quick note to forum admins: a [ commit ] tag could be useful, mirroring the [ pr ] tag for commits.

 

[Cath O'Deray]

the 2018 changes for compatibility with AMO).

… blocked from viewing a website of a large electronics-parts supplier …

PR 226919 and the two relevant commits: …

You might find that at least one of those commits was irrelevant to the website.

2018 report 226919 (from me) was specific to AMO, that is, addons.mozilla.org for add-ons (Firefox extensions, and so on) – not an electronics-parts supplier.

At a glance, the scope of other commit was also limited to searches for add-ons:

---

the change upstream, RESOLVED FIXED on the 123 branch.

Ten months ago

That was, January 2024.

HTH

 

[Cath O'Deray]

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