[[!meta  title="User agent spoofing and ebrary"]]
[[!meta  date="2008-06-30 13:57:00"]]
While trying to read an e-book from Drexel's library, I got:

"We have detected that you are attempting to access this book from a Linux-based browser, which is not yet supported by the ebrary Reader."

I was using Firefox, so I can't imagine I'm not actually supported.
I read up on spoofing user agents, and there are
[one-off instructions](http://johnbokma.com/mexit/2004/04/24/changinguseragent.html),
[a Firefox addon](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59),
and a [list of idiotic websites](http://webtips.dan.info/brand-x/useragent.htm).

The one-off method (a la John Bokma, link above):

 * `about:` in address bar to get the current user agent string.
In my case `Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.9) Gecko/2007102514 Firefox/2.0.0.9`
 * `about:config` in the address bar
 * right click on the window background and select `New->String`
 * name the new string `general.useragent.override`
 * impersonate Firefox on a Mac with `Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8.0.4) Gecko/20060508 Firefox/1.5.0.4` (from David Atkins on [Zytrax](http://www.zytrax.com/tech/web/firefox-history.html))
 * delete your override string when you're done

Hrm, while the spoofing worked, now I get:
`Download/Install ebrary Reader™ Plug-in for Macintosh`.
On to learn about [ebrary](http://www.ebrary.com/corp/), a browser for my browser.
Able to do all the things my current browser can't, like view images.
You'd think they could at least link PDFs for those on less popular OSes.
Ah I suppose they are worried about people stealing the copyrighted material.
Sigh.

There is also a [wine hack](http://commandline.org.uk/linux/2006/mar/5/using-the-ebrary-reader-on-linux/) to get things working in the short term.
One of the comments points out that the wine info is now up [at ebrary](http://www.ebrary.com/kb/users/linux_under_wine.jsp).
Users of non-`apt` distros certainly "can try" to install using their directions, sigh.

[[!tag tags/linux]]