User Agent String is a little but very important information served by every Web Browser to tell a website which browser or Platform it is. That’s why when you visit Facebook.com from your smartphone browser instead of desktop, Facebook loads its mobile layout to make it view-able in phone screen. In the same way, a website can change its layout depending on whether you are from Android, iPhone or iPad.

Now suppose, you are using Chrome on Android and you want to tell a website that you are using Chrome from iPhone. You can easily achieve this by switching the Chrome User Agent from Android to iPhone, thus, the website may show you its iPhone layout(if it has different design for iPhone). You can also switch to Desktop User Agent to load the Desktop version of any website (if the website loads its design depending on User Agent other than screen size).

Requirements to switch Chrome User Agent on Android

  1. Phone must be rooted with a Super User app installed(Chrome doesn’t let you change UA String).
  2. Chrome User Agent app from Google Play.

Using “Chrome User Agent” to change Chrome UA String on Android

1. After downloading and installing Chrome User Agent, open it, you should see different kinds of User Agents like iPad, iPhone, Windows Phone, Windows 7 IE10 etc including the default on too. Now for the first time when switching to a different User Agent, you should be asked to grant ‘Super User’ request. ‘Grant’ it. You can see – you can switch to Desktop Agents too.

Grant Super User access

2. In case you need, you can edit every UA too by holding finger on it, then ‘Edit’. You can even add your own UA too by tapping “Add User Agent” from top.

Edit User String

3. After switching to may other Agent, you have just done with changing Chrome UA. Now you can just open chrome and Chrome will always show the changed User Agent to every website.

4. To check if your changed User Agent is really working, you can visit gs.statcounter.com/detect and see details. Here’s my UA before and after changing.

Before and after changing UA to iPhone

Chrome for Android actually uses different kinds of User Strings different phones. You can get a list of User Agents used by it at gtrifonov.

Unless you need to change it, it’s not recommended to change user agent as some website may misidentify your device browser and you may face bad experience.

Author: 

Jaber is a Programmer and Tech Enthusiast Geek from Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is the founder and Chief-Editor of TechGainer. While he is away from his keyboard, either he's fishing or messing with wildlife. In case, you can contact him at rijans[at]techgainer[dot]com.