User Agent string says "Debian/squeeze/sid ()" instead of "Ubuntu/10.04 LTS (lucid)"

Bug #578717 reported by Olivier Tilloy
28
This bug affects 3 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
epiphany-browser (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Low
Luke Faraone
Lucid
Fix Released
Low
Luke Faraone

Bug Description

Binary package hint: epiphany-browser

In epiphany 2.30.2 in lucid, the user agent string is the following:

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; fr-fr) AppleWebKit/531.2+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/531.2+ Debian/squeeze/sid () Epiphany/2.30.2

To be compared with the user agent string exposed by firefox:

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; fr; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100423 Ubuntu/10.04 (lucid) Firefox/3.6.3

This makes detecting the version of Ubuntu at best difficult.
The user agent string can be inspected easily at e.g. http://useragentstring.com/.

Information for an SRU:

Impact of the bug on users: when browsing a dynamic website that relies on the user agent string to determine the OS and its version and display content accordingly, the user may not get the intended content (such a web site may be e.g. the Ubuntu support and learning center, as was discussed last UDS: see https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/community-m-ubuntu-support-and-learning-center).

Fixed in the development branch: by modifying the branding.conf file (see related branches).

TEST CASE:
 1) Open Epiphany (Applications menu > Internet > Epiphany Web Browser)
 2) Browse to http://useragentstring.com/
 3) Inspect the user agent string
 Expected result: the string contains "Ubuntu/10.04 LTS"
 Current result: the string contains "Debian/squeeze/sid"

Regression potential: None as far as I know.

Related branches

Revision history for this message
Olivier Tilloy (osomon) wrote :

The fix is pretty trivial, the information to be changed sits in /usr/share/epiphany-browser/branding.conf.

Revision history for this message
Olivier Tilloy (osomon) wrote :

diff /usr/share/epiphany-browser/branding.conf.orig /usr/share/epiphany-browser/branding.conf
2,4c2,4
< Vendor=Debian
< VendorSub=squeeze/sid
< VendorComment=
---
> Vendor=Ubuntu
> VendorSub=10.04
> VendorComment=lucid

Revision history for this message
Luke Faraone (lfaraone) wrote :

Thank you for your patch. Before this can be fixed in Lucid, it needs to be fixed in the development version of Ubuntu, Maverick. Please create a new branch targeting Maverick.

Then, the SRU process can be followed as outlined in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates#Procedure once it is fixed in M.

Changed in epiphany-browser (Ubuntu):
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Olivier Tilloy (osomon) wrote :

I linked a new branch that targets Maverick.
Note that the patch could probably be made more generic using lsb_release to dynamically fill the vendor information, but that would mean more intrusive changes which should probably be applied upstream first.
Thanks for reviewing.

Luke Faraone (lfaraone)
Changed in epiphany-browser (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → In Progress
assignee: nobody → Luke Faraone (lfaraone)
Changed in epiphany-browser (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → Low
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package epiphany-browser - 2.30.2-1ubuntu2

---------------
epiphany-browser (2.30.2-1ubuntu2) maverick; urgency=low

  * Correct user-agent string. (LP: #578717)
 -- Luke Faraone <email address hidden> Fri, 28 May 2010 11:18:58 -0400

Changed in epiphany-browser (Ubuntu):
status: In Progress → Fix Released
Luke Faraone (lfaraone)
Changed in epiphany-browser (Ubuntu):
status: Fix Released → Fix Committed
Luke Faraone (lfaraone)
Changed in epiphany-browser (Ubuntu):
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Luke Faraone (lfaraone) wrote :

As said before, if you wish to have this change applied in Lucid, please go through https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates#Procedure, and I'll upload the package to lucid-proposed.

Revision history for this message
Olivier Tilloy (osomon) wrote :

@Luke: I followed steps 1 to 3 of the procedure for an SRU, please let me know if more input is needed from my side.

description: updated
summary: User Agent string says "Debian/squeeze/sid ()" instead of "Ubuntu/10.04
- (lucid)"
+ LTS (lucid)"
Luke Faraone (lfaraone)
Changed in epiphany-browser (Ubuntu Lucid):
status: New → In Progress
importance: Undecided → Low
assignee: nobody → Luke Faraone (lfaraone)
Luke Faraone (lfaraone)
Changed in epiphany-browser (Ubuntu Lucid):
status: In Progress → Fix Committed
Revision history for this message
Martin Pitt (pitti) wrote : Please test proposed package

Accepted epiphany-browser into lucid-proposed, the package will build now and be available in a few hours. Please test and give feedback here. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Thank you in advance!

tags: added: verification-needed
Revision history for this message
Olivier Tilloy (osomon) wrote :

Tested epiphany-browser 2.30.2-1ubuntu1.1 from proposed, the user agent string now contains "Ubuntu/10.04 LTS" as expected.

Martin Pitt (pitti)
tags: added: verification-done
removed: verification-needed
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package epiphany-browser - 2.30.2-1ubuntu1.1

---------------
epiphany-browser (2.30.2-1ubuntu1.1) lucid-proposed; urgency=low

  * Correct user-agent string. (LP: #578717)
 -- Luke Faraone <email address hidden> Fri, 28 May 2010 22:48:08 -0400

Changed in epiphany-browser (Ubuntu Lucid):
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
tags: added: testcase
To post a comment you must log in.
This report contains Public information  
Everyone can see this information.

Duplicates of this bug

Other bug subscribers

Remote bug watches

Bug watches keep track of this bug in other bug trackers.