Identify whether HTTP requests from Android App or not? and then respond appropriately

Question

My Android App has an App Widget associated with it which is updated every 10 minutes on an Android Device. These updates send HTTP requests for data to the servers and parse th

Answer 1

If the actual request is the same (for instance, you are not able to add a POST or GET variable to actively identify your request), you'd have to rely on other things, like user-agent.

While you can set them according to your wishes in your app (also see @mark_bakker nd @mark_allison 's answers), you should be aware that there are ways to mess with this, so don't use it for stuff you really don't want other users to see.

• An android user could in theory change the user_agent string between the request leaving your app and the request leaving his/her network. So don't use it for "Android users didn't pay, so should not see this/that info" applications
• The other way around, non-android users can change their user-agent too obviously, so if you have content only your paying android-users should see, they might fake the string.

In the end it might be better to just change your request if you can: you want a different reply, you should do a different request is my opinion.