Comment 24 for bug 397211

Before I begin, I will echo what others have said, in that sites that restrict access to certain user-agents are mostly wrong in doing so.

I can also fully understand Ubuntu changing the Firefox application name and branding to Shiretoko, so as differentiate it on a users system, and to allow both to be installed side-by-side.

I do not however, understand the reasoning behind changing the user agent.

The user agent is a valid method of identifying a browsers capabilities to visited websites. Some web-servers and javascript libraries rely on the user-agent to handles how content is rendered and to deal with browser quirks.

The only valid reason I can think of to change the user-agent of what is, in essence, standard Firefox 3.5, would be if the functionality were different, or the rendering engine rendered differently. I don't think that this is the case.

This decision, adds unnecessary difficulties for end users, for no technical reason I can think of (I'll happily stand corrected if I am wrong though :)

Cheers and keep up the good work. P