There is no overt way that a site can tell what visitor is accessing it. The normal communications protocol says that a browser should tell the site what kind of browser it is when first contacting the site. This is not required, so a browser could tell the site something else, or even nothing at all. The protocol identifier for this is called the "User-Agent:" header. The parameter in lynx to set this is "-useragent=whatever". For instance, to browse to a site using lynx while "pretending" to be an old version of firefox: lynx -useragent='Mozilla/4.79 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.4.18-3 i686; Nav)' http://whatever.com On Thu, Oct 06, 2011 at 19:13:39PM -0400, Karen Lewellen wrote: > Just found this. > Hang a second, most browser s can be configured so the site thinks it is > something else? > I knew ebrowse had this ability, but did not think others did > I am very curious how this might impact functionality, what does one do > to accomplish this marvel? > Karen > On Thu, 8 Sep 2011, Henry Yen wrote: > > >On Wed, Sep 07, 2011 at 18:01:03PM -0400, Karen Lewellen wrote: > >>The other question is if anyone can point me to something of an article > >>nature regarding open-source browsers and security? > > > >Most browsers, whether open-source or not, are mostly the same in this > >regard (over time). > > > >>I am finding that companies will know simply block access to anything but > >>ie or if you are lucky firefox, with the claim that the browsers suggested > >>for Ada / section 508 / w3c type access are a security risk. Never mind > >>what barriers this creates for using the site services. they are starting > >>to do it as well with earlier editions of ie, so soon that door will be > >>closed as well. > > > >Most browsers, including lynx the text browser, can be configured to report > >their identity as a different browser. It's virtually impossible for a > >website to identify a browser other than by simply asking it, so if I > >configure my lynx session to report that it's opera, the website will > >dutifully believe it. -- Henry Yen Aegis Information Systems, Inc. Senior Systems Programmer Hicksville, New York _______________________________________________ Blinux-list mailing list Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list