Firefox: Changing User Agents to Get Access to Extra Content

Contributed by risherz  
Tagged: Internet  

How to change user agents so that you can view “Members Only” areas and get access to extra content this is only meant for other browsers (such as Internet Explorer)

There are two ways to change user agents for Firefox

The first way is to download the User Agent switcher and switch your the user agent. Just download this extension. Then to change your user agents all you do is
1. Tools
2. User Agent Switcher
3. Pick the user agent you want

By default it has only 3 different options (Internet Explorer 6, Netscape and Opera), however you can always add more.

For example you might want to add the Googlebot 2.1 user agent… (when you use this user agent you can get into “member only areas” of quite a few sites) You can do this by

1. Tools
2. User Agent Switcher
3. Options
4. Options…
5. Then click on User Agents in the right column
6. Click on Add
Now type in Googlebot 2.1

where it says “Description” and “User Agent“.

The rest can be left empty. Then just click on OK. After that all you need to do is change your user agent and get access to “Member only” stuff on various sites on the net.

If you don’t want to download user agent switcher then you can also do this:

In the adderss bar type in
about:config

Then scroll down till you find (you can also use the filter feature)
“general.useragent.extra.firefox”
Double click on it and type in “Googlebot 2.1“. Now this will change your user agent to the google bot. To change the user agent back to the original one just right click and click Reset.