Set useragent in WKWebview

Question

How do I set a custom useragent string in a WKWebView? I'm trying to embed the version of my app so that my server-side can see what features are available. I found the following method:

let userAgent = "MyApp/1.33.7"
request.setValue(userAgent, forHTTPHeaderField: "User-Agent")

NSURLConnection.sendAsynchronousRequest(request, queue: NSOperationQueue.mainQueue()) {(response, data, error) in
    let content = NSString(data: data, encoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding)
    self.web!.loadHTMLString(content!, baseURL: url)
}
self.web!.loadRequest(request);

But this means the useragent is only set for that single request. The first other request (e.g. a forward), will mean the useragent is reset to default again. How can I more permanently configure the wkwebview to use my custom useragent string?

Answer 1

You'll be happy to hear that WKWebView just gained a customUserAgent property in iOS 9 and OSX 10.11

Example:

wkWebView.customUserAgent = "your agent" 

Answer 2

Update:

As of iOS 9.0 it is possible to set the user agent directly (as stated in other answers). But it is important to note that setting it will completely override the default user agent. If for some reason you need to just append a custom user agent use one of the following approaches.

webView.evaluateJavaScript("navigator.userAgent") { [weak webView] (result, error) in
    if let webView = webView, let userAgent = result as? String {
        webView.customUserAgent = userAgent + "/Custom Agent"
    }
}

or by using a sacrificial UIWebView

webView.customUserAgent = (UIWebView().stringByEvaluatingJavaScript(from: "navigator.userAgent") ?? "") + "/Custom agent"

---

Old answer:

As noted in my comment you can use the same approach as described here: Change User Agent in UIWebView (iPhone SDK)

Now if you want to get the user agent you need to have an instance of a WKWebView and evaluate this javascript on it:

navigator.userAgent

The problem is that if you set a custom user agent after a WKWebView has been instantiated you will always get the same user agent. To solve this problem you have to reinstantiate the web view. Here is a sample how this might look:

self.wkWebView = [[WKWebView alloc] initWithFrame:self.view.bounds];
__weak typeof(self) weakSelf = self;

[self.wkWebView evaluateJavaScript:@"navigator.userAgent" completionHandler:^(id result, NSError *error) {
    __strong typeof(weakSelf) strongSelf = weakSelf;

    NSString *userAgent = result;
    NSString *newUserAgent = [userAgent stringByAppendingString:@" Appended Custom User Agent"];

    NSDictionary *dictionary = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:newUserAgent, @"UserAgent", nil];
    [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] registerDefaults:dictionary];

    strongSelf.wkWebView = [[WKWebView alloc] initWithFrame:strongSelf.view.bounds];

    // After this point the web view will use a custom appended user agent
    [strongSelf.wkWebView evaluateJavaScript:@"navigator.userAgent" completionHandler:^(id result, NSError *error) {
        NSLog(@"%@", result);
    }];
}];

The code above will log:

Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 8_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/600.1.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/12B411 Appended Custom User Agent

Alternative

This could be made even simpler by using a "sacrificial" UIWebView since it evaluates javascript synchronously.

UIWebView *webView = [[UIWebView alloc] initWithFrame:self.view.bounds];
NSString *userAgent = [webView stringByEvaluatingJavaScriptFromString:@"navigator.userAgent"];
NSString *newUserAgent = [userAgent stringByAppendingString:@" Appended Custom User Agent"];
NSDictionary *dictionary = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:newUserAgent, @"UserAgent", nil];
[[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] registerDefaults:dictionary];

self.wkWebView = [[WKWebView alloc] initWithFrame:self.view.bounds];
[self.wkWebView evaluateJavaScript:@"navigator.userAgent" completionHandler:^(id result, NSError *error) {
    NSLog(@"%@", result);
}];

Which logs the same thing:

Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 8_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/600.1.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/12B411 Appended Custom User Agent

Right now UIWebView and WKWebView use the same user agent but this approach might cause problems if that changes in the future.

Answer 3

Custom User Agent

To set a custom User Agent you can use customUserAgent property:

let webConfiguration = WKWebViewConfiguration()
let webView = WKWebView(frame: .zero, configuration: webConfiguration)
webView.customUserAgent = "ExampleApp/1.0 (iPhone)"

Available: iOS 9+

Append to the default User Agent

To append a custom string at the and of the default user agent you can use applicationNameForUserAgent property:

let webConfiguration = WKWebViewConfiguration()
webConfiguration.applicationNameForUserAgent = "ExampleApp/1.0 (iPhone)"
let webView = WKWebView(frame: .zero, configuration: webConfiguration)

Then it will look for example like:

Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 11_2 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/604.4.7
(KHTML, like Gecko) ExampleApp/1.0 (iPhone)
                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Available: iOS 9+

Answer 4

WKWebView Swift 3 example:

let userAgentValue = "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_12_5) AppleWebKit/603.2.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/10.1.1 Safari/603.2.4"
webView.customUserAgent = userAgentValue

---

Note to those who try to do this using Storyboard or Interface Builder: Unfortunately, Xcode doesn't currently support using WKWebView in Storyboards (Xcode version 8.3.2), so you have to add the web view manually in your code.

UIWebView Swift 3 example:

UserDefaults.standard.register(defaults: ["UserAgent": userAgentValue])

Answer 5

In my swift 3 case, I need entire app using a custom userAgent, here is my solution in AppDelegate. Here using UIWebview is because I don't need to set up the WKWebViewConfiguration, because I just only need the userAgent string

 fileprivate func setupGlobalWebviewUserAgent() {

    let webview = UIWebView()
    var newUserAgent = webview.stringByEvaluatingJavaScript(from: "navigator.userAgent")
    newUserAgent = newUserAgent?.appending("custom user agent")
    let dictionary = Dictionary(dictionaryLiteral: ("UserAgent", newUserAgent))
    UserDefaults.standard.register(defaults: dictionary)
}