The User Agent String thread: what are you using to enable legacy function on sites like YouTube?

[B S Magnet]

This is exactly as the topic title says!

YouTube, as we know quite well here, nudges and tweaks their cash cow web portal, kicking out browsers whose default user agent strings have no support at all any longer or prompt YT to notify the user that one’s browser is “too old”.

In the past, some folks have had success with setting user agents as an Opera Mini Browser on, say, vintage Nokia smartphones like the N90.

The user agent string I’ve been using to reach YT clips on Interweb is:

Opera/9.80 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/5.1.21214/28.2725; U; ru) Presto/2.8.119 Version/11.10

As we’ve lacked a clearinghouse thread like this, I’m certain I got this user agent string from another savvy PowerPC Macs/Early Intel Macs MR member, but I can’t find where or who that was (though I have a hunch it was probably @Dronecatcher ).

Whatever the case, I really like it, because it delivers search results quickly and plays video clips without a lot of the HTML5 overhead or XHR guff one deals with when using user agent strings from a more recent browser. The above, which pulls up an m.youtube.com mobile server, doesn’t present a gorgeous layout as far as page formatting, but it’s been getting the job done.

The purpose of this thread, though, is to give us a place for us to share our user agent strings which continue to work even as other ones no longer do the trick.

 

[Dronecatcher]

I've been using this one for a while now - I did some unscientific testing last year with various mobile agents and this returned the lowest CPU use on Youtube (for LWK on Leopard):

Mozilla/5.0 (Mobile; rv:48.0) Gecko/48.0 Firefox/48.0 KAIOS/2.0

 

[B S Magnet]

I've been using this one for a while now - I did some unscientific testing last year with various mobile agents and this returned the lowest CPU use on Youtube (for LWK on Leopard):

Mozilla/5.0 (Mobile; rv:48.0) Gecko/48.0 Firefox/48.0 KAIOS/2.0

Thought I’d give this a quick look on Interweb, compared with the above I posted, and here are the visual differences:

Figure 1. Mozilla/5.0 (Mobile; rv:48.0) Gecko/48.0 Firefox/48.0 KAIOS/2.0 on Interweb (10.6.8)

For the above, the test video pulls up quickly and plays. Full screen has problems, and theatre mode is unresponsive. In the URL, the server variable “app=desktop” makes an appearance, and the domain is www-dot-youtube-dot-com. No text is generated, however, suggesting that YT relies on newer JS/XHR calls which are not recognized on an older browser engine.

Figure 2. Opera/9.80 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/5.1.21214/28.2725; U; ru) Presto/2.8.119 Version/11.10 on Interweb (10.6.8)

For the second test, the test video also pulls up quickly and the UI controls comport with a glass interface (showing up on the video screen itself, expecting a thumb or finger to control playback). Unlike the previous, the video pulls up the m-dot-youtube-dot-com mobile domain, which I found can be overridden by pasting in that “app=desktop” string, but by default, it doesn’t appear. Also interesting: in the mobile page load, the dark mode from my logged-in profile is carried forward. With this mode, of course, the “theatre mode” toggle isn’t available.

 

[Dronecatcher]

In the URL, the server variable “app=desktop” makes an appearance, and the domain is www-dot-youtube-dot-com.

Odd. It reports the mobile URL on mine but it has stopped working with InterWebPPC on Tiger.
It does still work with LWK and InterWebPPC on Leopard (InterWebPPC shown below)

 

[B S Magnet]

Odd. It reports the mobile URL on mine but it has stopped working with InterWebPPC on Tiger.
It does still work with LWK and InterWebPPC on Leopard (InterWebPPC shown below)

View attachment 2163719

Interesting! I think I’m going to do a bit more tinkering to see how and when the server throws in that “app=desktop” string. There might be more to it than I was previously aware.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Interesting! I think I’m going to do a bit more tinkering to see how and when the server throws in that “app=desktop” string. There might be more to it than I was previously aware.

Scrub my previous note - it is working in Tiger (as per the Leopard screenshot) - I checked and I'd left an Android UA in place before.

You might have to check other media settings in the config file - they might thwart what the KaiOS UA is requesting?

 

[B S Magnet]

Scrub my previous note - it is working in Tiger (as per the Leopard screenshot) - I checked and I'd left an Android UA in place before.

You might have to check other media settings in the config file - they might thwart what the KaiOS UA is requesting?

Possibly. I’m going to have to do some looking into it when I have a bit more time to troubleshoot. Cheers.

 

[wicknix]

Mines similar, but i've been using Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 7.0; Mobile; rv:52.0) Gecko/52.0 with IW on 10.6.