OS type sensing

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I hope this is the right place for this..

Is there a way to stop websites from sensing what type of OS you are using and automatically switching you to OSX type downloads? The reason I ask is that I used to download games for my windows side and others whose computers I fix (I don't like allowing Windows access to the net), but now I'm finding that now I can't do that. Now some places just tell me "no Mac version available".
 

chscag

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There's no way that I know of to make your Mac act or emulate that it's a PC, other than using virtual software or Boot Camp to actually run Windows on your Mac.

I download lots of Windows files using my Mac but none of them have been games so have never run into that problem.
 

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The OS may be part of what is called the user agent string. This gets sent to each website and it identifies your browser. This is mine:
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_6_7) AppleWebKit/534.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/13.0.768.0 Safari/534.36
As you can see, I am using Chrome 13.0.760.0, using an Intel Mac running OS X 10.6.7. Websites can use this information - they do after all get it when you visit the page.

It's possible to "spoof" your user agent string (send a different one). What browser are you using?
 
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@chscag: I'm not wanting to emulate a PC, I have parallels for that.. That said, I don't tend to let it access the net other than for critical updates.. I used to dl games and software for it (and many sites allowed you the choice) or for fixing friends computers using my mac side.

@vansmith: I'm using firefox 3.6xx, but also have Chrome & Safari.

Like I said, some of the sites I understand why you aren't given the choice anymore (ie. flash etc) but even still I have, in the past downloaded the initial progs so that windows goes directly to them, thus limiting the accumulation of cookies, spam etc and time it's connected.

Thank you.. Aqua
 
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PS I also have a Windows machine and I'm not sure but I'm not wanting to spend extra money for it to be able to hook up to the net..
 

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Give the User Agent Switcher extension a try. Once that's installed, go to Tools > Default User Agent and try changing it to one of the IE strings.

A user agent string changer is built into Safari as well but it's not visible by default. To enable it, go to Safari > Preferences > Advanced > "Show Develop menu in menubar." Next, go to Develop > User Agent > and choose an IE one.

I only suggest IE simply because since it only runs on Windows, it's probably your best bet. You may also want to consider changing your UAS back to the default afterwards - I've experienced issues before when using non-default strings.
 
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Sorry forgot to reply to this... I tried it thank you.. It worked or rather it seemed to but then it auto opened it to just a text file (but the extension is exe). I haven't checked it out to see if it works or not..
 

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The extension shouldn't be an exe file - Firefox extensions are what is called "platform agnostic" in that they work across operating systems. If you're using Firefox, simply go back to the page and click on the download button. Firefox should download and install it for you.
 
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Sorry for the misunderstanding.. The firefox extension was as to be expected but when I downloaded the .exe of the game demo, it auto opened as a text file... (the size looks right so it may just be because I haven't reactivated parallels since I reinstalled a while back -can't find my xp disk and I haven't rushed to find it lol I'll transfer it to my PC one of these days..

Strange at one time, I was glued to that PC lol Now I'm glued to this and Rise of Nations on the Mac keeps me busy when I want to play a game lol (but I still miss my cutesy games every so often... ;)
 

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