Most of you all reading this article understand what an IP address is and how websites can use IP addresses to track your browsing and understand your geolocation.
What some of you may not know is your IP address is not the only fingerprint websites see when you visit. This article will focus on the "user agent" details that your device leave when visiting a website. You can view your user user agent using our user agent lookup tool.
My user agent:
This user agent informs the website that the device is using Google Chrome version 123 and is used the AppleWebKit engine. This user agent string also tells the website that the device is being run from a computer running Mac OS X version 15.7 on an Intel Macintosh.
It is important to note that the device chooses what to send and the details in the string may be partially accurate or even spoofed to made to look like a different device. For example, the user agent above is my user agent and indicates I am running OS X on an Intel Macintosh.
My actual operation system is MacOS 14 and my processor is an Apple M1 and not an Intel based Macintosh. The reason for the discrepancy is that Apple has not updated what string is sent and thus my computer shares incorrect information with each website I visit. So just like an IP geolocation may not be fully accurate, user agents may also not be fully accurate.
We don't recommend users take any action to attempt to spoof their user agent but being informed on what website see about your device is important to understanding what information is being shared and how this information could be used.
What some of you may not know is your IP address is not the only fingerprint websites see when you visit. This article will focus on the "user agent" details that your device leave when visiting a website. You can view your user user agent using our user agent lookup tool.
What is an user agent?
An user agent is a string of text that your browser sends to a website when you visit. The text includes your operating system, browser, browser engine, and sometimes whether the device is mobile or not. The user agent is used by a website to understand how your device will render the website and what features may or may not be supported by your browser.Details of an user agent
We begin by breaking down my actual user agent and what is in it.My user agent:
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/123.0.0.0 Safari/537.36This user agent informs the website that the device is using Google Chrome version 123 and is used the AppleWebKit engine. This user agent string also tells the website that the device is being run from a computer running Mac OS X version 15.7 on an Intel Macintosh.
It is important to note that the device chooses what to send and the details in the string may be partially accurate or even spoofed to made to look like a different device. For example, the user agent above is my user agent and indicates I am running OS X on an Intel Macintosh.
My actual operation system is MacOS 14 and my processor is an Apple M1 and not an Intel based Macintosh. The reason for the discrepancy is that Apple has not updated what string is sent and thus my computer shares incorrect information with each website I visit. So just like an IP geolocation may not be fully accurate, user agents may also not be fully accurate.
Privacy concerns
User agents are useful in helping websites best serve their users but like IP addresses they can also be used to understand more details about an user. Combined with geolocation details from IP address a website can understand where an user is from and what type of device they are using. Websites can of course also track pages that users visit and all of this collectively starts to form an unique fingerprint for the user.We don't recommend users take any action to attempt to spoof their user agent but being informed on what website see about your device is important to understanding what information is being shared and how this information could be used.