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I am constantly annoyed by websites that force me into the (often terrible) mobile version of the site and provide no way to switch to the full version. I know Dolphin for example allows changing the user agent string of the browser to trick websites into delivering the full site, but I don't want to switch. Is there a way to do this with the stock browser? I'm open to hacks, and I have a Galaxy S Vibrant running 2.2 (Nero v5 with TouchWiz).

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  • I wish that there was an app that would let me do this on the fly. I think Firefox on the desktop has an add-on that can do it (not that that helps us here very much)
    – shambleh
    Commented Jul 16, 2011 at 17:06
  • My Galaxy S's browser has user agent as one of the options in its settings, but I'm not sure if that's a feature of 2.3.3 or the particular ROM I'm running (Serendipity).
    – Chance
    Commented Aug 25, 2011 at 18:47

2 Answers 2

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For Galaxy devices, you can simply enter about:useragent into your browser's URL bar. I don't think this "sticks" across reboots, but it's relatively painless to do and doesn't require extra software/hacks/etc. I don't own a Galaxy so I'm not keen on some of the specifics.

If about:useragent doesn't work, then other phones can typically to this instead:

  • Enter about:debug into the URL bar to activate debug mode in the browser (you won't see any kind of confirmation that this has worked)
  • Go into Menu->More->Settings and scroll all the way to the bottom. You should see a new menu item called UAString
  • Tap the UAString menu option and select a different user agent from the provided menu

I have IE6, "Mac Desktop" and "Linux Desktop" as options for mine, all of which give me full versions of websites.

See also this question with info on some of the goodies in debug mode.

The about:debug menu also works on Honeycomb (or later), but the menu is organized a little differently. You enter about:debug the same way, then go into the Settings and you'll find a new settings tab (on the left) simply named "Debug". UAString is one of the first options in this tab.

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  • This worked for me. Note that for some websites, you need to delete your cookies before reloading the website to see the change, because some websites store your client info between page loads.
    – Daniel S.
    Commented Feb 20, 2014 at 10:37
  • about:debug works on a galaxy j3 (lollipop), well, kind of... I can access the debug menu but as soon as I visit another page the Debug menu disappears and the user agent switches back to normal. Any suggestions? Am I doing something wrong?
    – soger
    Commented Feb 8, 2017 at 1:08
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On my HTC Desire running 2.2 I have an option under the stock browser menu>more>settings called "Mobile view" which Enables mobile versions of web pages.

For example with this this enabled I get the mobile version of Tumblr, with it disabled I get the full site.

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  • Thanks for the additional information, I'm sure HTC users will find it useful.
    – Matthew Read
    Commented Feb 25, 2011 at 18:30

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