Skip to main content
1 of 2

Tor Browser Bundle failing userAgent spoofing

Using Tor Browser Bundle, I noticed the latest versions I have (9x) did not show user agent in the general.userAgent.override entry in about:config. The browser was downloaded from the Tor Project and passed its GPG signature check.

User agent checkers shown on Wikipedia, and some I have found in online searching, continue to show the usual Windows 10 OS result when the browser is pointed at their webpage.

However, Chrome downloads correctly shows a Linux OS when java is enabled (which as far as I know is required for user agent detection), but shows Windows 10 by default. This suggests Chrome's website scripts are able to bypass Tor's supposed user agent spoofing with ease.

https://www.google.co.uk/chrome/

Running Firefox with User Agent Switcher installed confirms this. UAS is able to fool the Chrome download page with java enabled, offering Windows 10 when Windows 10 is set as user agent, and 64bit .deb when Debian is set instead. Setting Android provides a link to the Play Store.

Past encounters with the browser included YouTube as default search engine (5x or so), and the irritating habit shared by Firefox to lesser effect of writing to dconf in /run which would mess up the GUI and bloat file browsers all the time (now blocked in Firejailing).

How can Tor Browser Bundle be failing at so basic a task as user agent obfuscation?