User Agent
A string in HTTP request headers that identifies the browser, OS, and device. Used by servers to tailor what they serve.
A user agent (UA) is a string included in the User-Agent HTTP header that identifies the browser and operating system making the request. Servers use it to serve appropriate content — desktop layouts to desktop browsers, mobile layouts to phones, modern HTML to up-to-date browsers, fallbacks to old ones.
For scraping and automation, the user agent is one of the simplest signals destinations use to fingerprint bot vs human traffic. Outdated UAs (Chrome 60, Firefox 50), missing UAs, and obviously-default scraping-library UAs (default python-requests/2.x) get flagged by anti-bot platforms immediately. Setting a current, realistic UA is one of the cheapest improvements you can make to a scraper.
You can see your current user agent at our User Agent Lookup tool. To rotate UAs in a scraper, maintain a list of current real-browser UA strings (Chrome on Windows, Firefox on macOS, Safari on iOS, etc.) and pick one per request or per session.
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