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How To Emulate A Mobile Web Browser In Firefox?

by | Tuesday, 24th Feb 2009 | 10 Comments | Share

There are several times when you may want to test out a mobile website, or use mobile websites to save bandwidth, since they load pretty fast and do not use heavy images, which in turn can use up more bandwidth from your ISP.

mobile_web_browser

However many mobile websites redirect users back to a regular website, when you visit it using browsers such as , , or Internet Explorer.

Also Read: Monitor Your Bandwidth Usage

If you are looking to test a website or save some bandwidth while surfing your favorite social networking site, a simple could help you emulate a mobile web browser and let you surf the website, like you would do in a actual mobile web browser.

The trick involves changing the user agent string, that is sent out to website, to make them think, that the request is coming from a actual mobile web browser, you can practically emulate default system browsers from any phone.

Steps To Emulate A Mobile Web Browser In Firefox

Step 1: Download the User Agent Switcher Add-on for Firefox

Step 2: Restart Firefox for the add-on change to take place.

Step 3: To emulate a mobile web browser, you will need to change the user agent string that is sent out, we recommend finding a appropriate user agent string from this huge list of mobile browser strings.

Step 4: Once you have identified your favorite mobile browser string, go to Tools > User Agent Switcher > Options > Options in Firefox.

select_user_agent_switcher_options

Step 5: In the options window for user agent switcher, select User Agents and click on the add button.

add_new_user_agent

Step 6: In the new Add User Agent dialog box, give a appropriate name to the user agent and copy the user agent string you got from step 3 into the second text box, for example we are creating a user agent string for iPhone, so we named it as iPhone emulator and added the default user agent for iPhone in the User Agent text box.

create_iphone_emulator

You can leave the other options provided as blank, once you have entered the details, click on the Ok button.

Step 7: To start a new browsing session using a emulated web browser, go to Tools > User Agent Switcher and select the appropriate mobile web browser you want to emulate, to switch back to normal browsing, just select the default option from the same menu.

iphone_emulator

This tip will allow you to browse mobile web sites or test them out from your PC, however this trick cannot be used to test out mobile applications, that require you to install something to the mobile phone, however you can still use this trick and save on bandwidth too.

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I am the editor-in-chief and owner of Techie Buzz. I love coding and have contributed to several open source projects in the past. You can know more about me and my projects by visiting my Personal Website.I am also a social networking enthusiast and can be found active on twitter, you can follow Keith on twitter @keithdsouza. You can click on my name to visit my Google+ profile.

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  1. Jehzeel Laurente on June 8th, 2009 at 6:45 pm #

    yey! this is exactly what I’m looking for! thanks for sharing about this nifty tutorial. :D

    Now I can emulate iphone and other mobile browsers to view my site :D weeeeeeee!

  2. iPod Hotel on September 24th, 2009 at 3:12 pm #

    Opera Mini Emulator is one that I find very useful. Works with Safari too ;)

  3. Robin on December 26th, 2009 at 5:50 am #

    thanx for t post

  4. dewdle on March 27th, 2011 at 4:03 pm #

    Great tip, I’m looking into tethering in case of hurricanes, but was worried about how much bandwidth a traditional pc/laptop browser would use.

    Not that I’d be surfing youtube after a hurricane LOL, but what mobile user agent do you recommend so that youtube works? I’ve tried iPhone and Android, and have received different error messages for each. But what’s both amusing and frustrating is that embedded youtube movies work great.

    PS: Your email requirement won’t recognize emails with dots before the @ sign, uhhhh ok, throwaway hotmail for your script LOL!

  5. Damo on November 22nd, 2011 at 11:54 pm #

    I’ve got the add-on but it tells me that in order to view youtube videos I need to enable the flash add-on for safari, which I obviously cannot. Any ideas?

  6. Damo on November 23rd, 2011 at 12:08 am #

    Anyway perhaps to enable Youtube with this?

    I’m not developing websites, but when I’m capped I prefer to use less content by default and the user-agent emulating Archos seems to work nicely, however not for flash content. Using the Iphone user-agent I get told I need to enable the flash add-on for safari, which I cannot, obviously.

    Any ideas?

  7. demi lovato on January 9th, 2012 at 3:26 pm #

    Thanks for this! It will make my life so much easier. Everything needs to be mobile friendly nowadays! :)

  8. emmanuel on April 2nd, 2012 at 4:24 am #

    Don’t work anymore as of 2 april 2012.

    Please update the article or remove it as it’s obsolete.