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A friend told me he suddenly cannot use Firefox any more, no matter what site he hits, because he gets a message saying only IE is allowed. I'm thinking this has got to be a proxy server issue.

I'm thinking the User Agent Switcher extension would work, but he probably won't be allowed to download the extension.

Any solutions?

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If your friend is somewhere where a proxy is required, then your friend should follow the rules. – squillman Feb 25 '11 at 14:09
presumably he doesn't run the proxy server. He could download the xli file -the firefox extension- with IE then run firefox and point it to it and install it. – barlop Feb 25 '11 at 14:56
@barlop, can you explain how to do this in detail? – JoelFan Feb 25 '11 at 15:28
yes, i've posted an answer. I meant xpi file. The file you'd download in IE and open in firefox is you'll see, called user_agent_switcher-0.7.3-fx+sm.xpi – barlop Feb 25 '11 at 20:17
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2 Answers

up vote 3 down vote

You can change your useragent just using Firefox internals. Here's how:

  1. Go to about:config in the address bar
  2. Right click on any value and go New -> String

  3. When it asks you for a preference name, enter 

    general.useragent.override

  4. When prompted to enter a string value, give it an IE useragent, for example

    Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; InfoPath.2; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E)

Source

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up vote 2 down vote

You go to the link you'd normally go to to get the extension, here is the link https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/user-agent-switcher/ but go in IE. Then download the extension, it downloads as a file with extension xpi. It doesn't install automatically of course 'cos you're in IE and it is just downloading a file and not opening it / interpreting it. When I try in Chrome for example, I click Download, it says "To install this add-on and thousands more, get Firefox, a free and open web browser from Mozilla.
Learn more about Firefox or download anyway" You choose Download anyway.

The file you'll see, is user_agent_switcher-0.7.3-fx+sm.xpi

Then open firefox, click file, then open, make sure it's on "all files" so you see files of any extension, then open that file. From there it installs automatically, so from there it's just like you'd go gone to the site in firefox and clicked to install the extension. It downloads the extension which is quick and says to restart firefox.

You know this user switcher extension is installed 'cos it's listed in Tools..Addons, and it's made a new option in the Tools menu called "Default user agent"

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