Firefox tweaks: Browse the Internet like a Google bot!
 

Get the User Agent Switcher extension for firefox here.

Install it.

Restart Firefox.

Using the User Agent extension, add a new agent called "Google".

Add this as the "user agent" string:

Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html)

Now you can browse the internet and see what a Google bot will see. What will happen is that when you connect to a website, the website will think that you are a Google bot and allow you to access webpages that you may normally not be able to access. For example, you can by-pass annoying ads and the free registration processes that some sites make you go through to connect.

AFAIK it's perfectly legal to do this, although some may say it's unethical. Use your better judgment, and if you want you can always click on the ads or register.

Re: Firefox tweaks: Browse the Internet like a Google bot!
 

haha cool :D
/me tries

Re: Firefox tweaks: Browse the Internet like a Google bot!
 

Making people register for sites is unethical, so it all evens out.

Re: Firefox tweaks: Browse the Internet like a Google bot!
 

Too bad IE doesn't allow us to modify the User Agent :(

Re: Firefox tweaks: Browse the Internet like a Google bot!
 

yeah IE really sux ;)

Re: Firefox tweaks: Browse the Internet like a Google bot!
 

oh lookie lookie, the cute little troll :)

Re: Firefox tweaks: Browse the Internet like a Google bot!
 

/* annoy mode */

Yeah the truth hurts sometimes :D :D

/* end annoy mode */

Re: Firefox tweaks: Browse the Internet like a Google bot!
 

Konqueror also has such a function originally, and it can even use different info for different web sites :)

for IE maybe you can hexedit the dlls in windows\system32 dir but M$ will catch you into prison if you are caught doing that :D

[edit]
if you want to use KDE and its applications in Windows...
http://kde-cygwin.sourceforge.net/

however it's a bit difficult as it relies on Cygwin.

Trolltech has announced that their Windows version of Qt 4.0 will be released under GPL, perhaps we will have ported Windows KDE applications after that
[/edit]

Re: Firefox tweaks: Browse the Internet like a Google bot!
 

You can do this with opera too btw, no plugins needed :)

Re: Firefox tweaks: Browse the Internet like a Google bot!
 

I'm currently using Mozilla when I'm on linux, didn't like Konqueror very much... And I can't figure out how to install Firefox, can somebody help me?