How to open mobile websites on your PC browser
January 19th, 2009
There are a number of use-cases for which you would want to browse a mobile-optimized website on your PC. When you visit the mobile website on your PC’s web browser, the website displays the full content much to your dismay. However, when you visit the browser on a mobile, it displays a perfectly mobile optimized page.
In these cases, there are some simple steps that you can follow to open mobile websites on your PC:
- Download and install the latest version Firefox from http://www.getfirefox.com/.
- Visit Firefox Add-ons page and download the Modify Headers addon.
- Install the addon and restart firefox.
- From the firefox window, select “Tools” menu & click on “Modify Headers” option (Tools -> Modify Headers).
- The window will open as shown:
Click to enlarge - Below the title bar, there’s a drop down. Select “Add” from the drop down box.
- Now in the text box next to the drop down, type “user-agent”.
- In the third text box, paste this string – Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.2; U; Series60/3.1 NokiaE51-1/100.34.20; Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 ) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413.
- Click on “Save”.
- The screen should look like as shown in the screen shot below:
Click to enlarge - Using the buttons on the Modify Headers addon window, you can enable or disable particular items.
- That’s it! Whenever you want to view a mobile website, just go to Tools->Modify Headers and enable the user agent you added in step 8. When you don’t need it, just open this window and disable it.
- You can close addon window after you have enabled/disabled items.
- Enjoy!
Click to enlarge
Click to enlargeBehind the Scenes:
Most mobile websites make use of the HTTP header called “User-Agent”. This header tells the server what kind of web browser the user has. So, mobile websites usually look for the name of the device manufacturer in the User-Agent header. If it matches one of the manufacturers then the mobile optimized web page is sent.
That’s about it! Hope you enjoyed this brief.
Now go and figure out how to display the iPhone version of Facebook on your PC
March 25th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
How to use this web services in my program.could you guide me.
December 3rd, 2009 at 12:47 pm
HEY!!! THANK YOU SOOOOOOOO! MUCH!!!!!
YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW BIG FINDING THE GOOGLE LINK YOU YOUR GUIDE HAS BEEN!!!! YOU’VE JUST HELPED ME FINISH DOING A LIL HACK FOR MY FRIENDS MOBILE WEBSITE (IN A BET I HAD GOING ON)
THANK YOU AGIAN!!!!!!
December 24th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
thanx a lot
you rock!!!!!!!!
January 12th, 2010 at 10:14 am
This didnt work at all for me, i followed the steps, but the browsers header is the same, i can’t go to mobile sites.. geez, bummer.
March 29th, 2010 at 4:46 am
Its work. put “Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.2; U; Series60/3.1 NokiaE51-1/100.34.20; Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 ) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413″ at value not comment.
June 15th, 2010 at 2:18 pm
its really guuuuuuuuuuuud.
August 8th, 2010 at 12:10 am
thnx buddy ,,,,,,, it made my work easier
September 19th, 2010 at 10:26 pm
It is not working with websites like “wapking.net”.
September 25th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
hi…… buddy thats tricks only work on windows xp
but i update win7 thats tricks does not work. plz reply for win7 setting for mobile site open on pc.
February 15th, 2011 at 4:05 pm
I want a header for Nokia 7210 Supernova. Please!!!!
February 15th, 2011 at 4:56 pm
Visit http://www.aswinanand.com/1.php to get it.
March 2nd, 2011 at 6:35 pm
It doesn’t work on my firefox, when i try to open the mobile site, it says please visit through a mobile device…
April 4th, 2011 at 9:38 pm
hey thanks its great.. but i think you should help more..
I opened m.facebook.com its working nice!!
but I opened http://waptrick.com
http://wap.in/_common/free_wap_site.jsp?__wt=1
these sites are not working… please help me.. I want to open that sites on my PC browser..
April 8th, 2011 at 2:11 am
m.facebook.com opens with or without any header. Thia just does not work!
August 19th, 2011 at 7:03 pm
Hi I am Tarek. I live in Bangladesh.I am a curious student of Bangladesh.I want to be popular all of the world.Are you help me for this.I want to do friendship of many foreign friend.
December 20th, 2011 at 12:19 pm
please give me that tric for win7
December 25th, 2011 at 12:00 am
wow this trick is coooolllllllllll
i did a lot of googling and at last found this page
thanks a lot
January 5th, 2012 at 3:33 pm
thanks a tonn!!!
April 4th, 2012 at 5:04 am
Google Chrome does the magic. just put a ‘m.’ in front of the web address as in “http://m.facebook.com/”
May 1st, 2012 at 8:20 pm
it works………….thank u
May 1st, 2012 at 8:22 pm
it also works in windows 7…i tried in windows 7 it succeed
June 9th, 2012 at 8:42 am
The tricks is working fine in my win7 system with firefox 13.0 … thanks a lot…
July 7th, 2012 at 7:42 pm
he dud i just read this and tried it’s like dream come true, it’s really works.tanks a lot
August 2nd, 2012 at 12:30 am
Thank u very much. Ur trick worked. I was finding this for many days, got this link & its working now. Ur trick is very helpful.
August 5th, 2012 at 9:35 pm
Wow thankyou very very very much…
I loved It…
Keep it up.
September 17th, 2012 at 5:31 pm
You can also make use of user agent switcher addon on mozilla. Its very easy
November 15th, 2012 at 5:15 pm
Thanks. If you have limited bandwidth like me (3G) this is really good. Works really well/
November 18th, 2012 at 8:30 pm
Thanks a lot buddy
December 7th, 2012 at 11:45 am
great … very helpful …thanks dude …