A user agent is simply an information that your browser collects from your system and transmits to websites. This said information includes which operating system you’re using and which web browser you’re using. It is not personally identifiable information so sharing it with a website is safe. In fact, this said information can actually give you a better browsing experience. For instance, if a website knows you’re using Chrome browser, it will load a Chrome optimized version. Browsers automatically detect and also build your user agent but, you can actually fake it. If you want to do that, you can change your browser’s user agent to Mac or Windows.
Browsers allow you to change your agent from its console. If you are not familiar with the developer console, you can either opt for an extension or an add-on to change the user agent to Mac or Windows. In either case, what you basically require is the identifier string and you can choose if you really want to change it in the developer console or use an add-on. If you want to use an extension or add-on, we suggest you use the add-on User Agent Switcher for Firefox and User-Agent Switcher for Chrome. This Chrome extension comes packed with its own user agent switcher which incorporates a Mac option. If you don’t use the user-agent string below, you can decide to use the default option the extension gives you.
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User Agent Mac
The user agent string to change your OS to macOS when you visit a particular website is as follows. It is different from which browser you want the website to believe you’re using on macOS.
From Safari
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_7_4) AppleWebKit/534.57.2 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1.7 Safari/534.57.2
From Firefox
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.7; rv:12.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/12.0
From Chrome
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_7_4) AppleWebKit/536.11 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/20.0.1132.27 Safari/536.11
This will tell websites that you’re using macOS 10.7. If you want, you can change it to whatever version e.g., 10.11.6. That is the advantage of using a string instead of the default options in an extension. You can also customize it to suit your requirements.
User Agent Windows
The user agent for Windows is as follows.
From Safari
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; sv-SE) AppleWebKit/533.19.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.3 Safari/533.19.4
From Firefox
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; sv-SE) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/12.0
From Chrome
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; sv-SE) AppleWebKit/536.11 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/20.0.1132.27 Safari/536.11
This will trick websites, however, you can’t expect it to go beyond that limit. It won’t, for instance, it allow you access to macOS desktop services like iMessages. These strings are limited to working in browsers and also telling them you’re using a different hardware. They are neither a VPN, a proxy, or an unlocking tool for product-specific apps.
