android user agent

Question

I am writing an app in Android that uses a WebView to display HTML content. I was told to get an Android user agent for my app - how do I do that? I opened http://whatsmyuse

Answer 1

You can use System.getProperty("http.agent") to get the default device UA. And the webView.getSettings().getUserAgentString(); will give you the UA of the WebView. Be aware that we can set the UA programmatically. So it might not be the default device UA in all the cases.

System.getProperty("http.agent") is the better way to get the UA and can be retrieved before an instance of WebView is available.

Answer 2

You can't currently set the user-agent for WebView.

Update - I stand corrected!

In WebSettings there is a method called setUserAgentString:

webView.getSettings().setUserAgentString("my-user-agent");

Answer 3

If you would like to experiment with a custom User-Agent in the standalone Browser application (not an embedded WebView inside an application), you can manipulate the User-Agent value by typing "about:useragent" in your browser's URL field (without the quotes ""), and then load the page.

You will see a Dialog with radio buttons to simulate Iphone, Desktop, Lismore, Nexus One, Galaxy S or even a Custom User Agent edit box.

After you select/edit as per your needs, tap OK and you're set.

Cheers!

Answer 4

Put this in the onCreate method of the java class for the activity that displays the WebView:

WebView myWebView = (WebView)findViewById(R.id.webview);
//get the UA of the current running device:
String userAgent = view.getSettings().getUserAgentString() ;
//set the UA of the webview to this value:
myWebView.getSettings().setUserAgentString(userAgent);

Don't use System.getProperty("http.agent") - this will return the 'Dalvik' user agent (Dalvik is the VM that individual Android apps run within)

Answer 5

After much research, I figured it out. There is a way to set a user agent for Android WebView.

webview.getSettings().setUserAgentString("user-agent-string");

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/webkit/WebSettings.html