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BrowsersMost browsers identify themselves with a string that begins "Mozilla...". I've chosen not to document those (as yet). Here are a few of the rarer browser identifiers that I've seen.
Link Checkers, Link monitors and bookmark managersLink checkers and bookmark managers are run by people wanting to keep their pages and bookmarks up to date. Being visited by a link checker is good news as it means that someone has linked to you, and cares that you're still alive. Link monitors regularly check your pages for changes, usually because someone has selected your page as "one to watch" If you have access to the server log, check
the referrer page to try and get the URL from which you are
linked. Sometimes these URLs are inside password protected parts
of sites, so you won't be able to view the page.
If you build up a list of sites that link to you, these are the guys you should tell when you move (moral - never move) It's also quite common for the Link checker to give no indication of which URL it's coming from. Some link checkers always come from the same IP address, more usually they come from the client's site. It depends on whether the site owner has purchased a copy of the link checking software, or signed up to some centralized link checking service. If you get the client's IP address you can always try visiting that if they blank the referrer URL field, and surfing their site. Some of these tools appear to imply they're extracting email addresses (e.g. emailSiphon). As such they're probably unwelcome visitors since these addresses are probably being collected for spammers. A page listing various link checkers (and other tools) can be found at www.softwareqatest.com/qatweb1.html#LINK
ValidatorsValidators check your web pages for HTML correctness and standards compliance. Since other people are unlikely to send a validator to your site, you don't usually see much of this. Consequently the "list" below is restricted to the on-line validators I've used myself.
FTP clients and download managersIf you offer files for download, then you'll start to be visited by various FTP clients. Clients like Go!Zilla and GetRight are smart in that they can resume downloads that have been interrupted. This relies on your web server supporting the necessary protocol, but that's fairly standard these days. Research projectsThese agents come from research projects. Of course that's how Google started...
Software packagesThese agents are the default identifiers for various software packages. Software developers uses these packages to add Internet functionality to their own applications. As such it's impossible to say without looking at the pattern of access what these agents are being used for as the same agent name may be used by different developers fo achieve differemt results. While many of these packages allow you to change the user agent, some do not, and many developers are too lazy to change the agent string.
Offline browsers and other agents
Other miscellaneous agentsThese agents are ones that we've seen, but been unable to get information for, or which are slightly unusual in origin. If you have any additional information on any of these, feel free to send it to info@jafsoft.com
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