On Wed, 31 Jan 2007, Jonathon Jongsma wrote: > On 1/31/07, Mike Miller <mbmiller at taxa.epi.umn.edu> wrote: >> Is it possible that Linux machines don't identify as such? I don't know >> why a machine would give it's OS to a web site! It seems like a bad idea, >> so maybe Linux users avoid it. > > Web browsers generally identify their OS to sites they browse via the > user agent string. see > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent#Example_user-agent_strings. > If you use firefox, you can see what your browser is reporting itself > as in the help>about box. > I doubt that user-agent spoofing or hiding has much of an impact on > statistics. Thanks. And thanks to everyone else who filled me in on this point. I do lots of Linux computing myself, but almost all of it is done via ssh or vnc from a Windows machine. My web browsing is done 99+% from a Windows machine. It has been convenient to work this way, but the latest release of Windows is not looking so appealing to me. It does seem like a good time to try Linux on the desktop again. I have used Linux on desktop a few times but it never really took. Probably part of my problem is that I don't make it my primary computer -- it's either a second OS or it's a second (and less powerful) computer. Maybe something like the next release of Ubuntu will be enough to get me to make the leap. It is definitely a goal of mine to dump Windows completely. Mike