Firefox for Android and Firefox OS, while based on the same Gecko platform, have one key difference with respect to compatibility: their user agent (UA) string. The difference between the UA strings for these two products is the inclusion of the “Android” token in the Firefox for Android UA. The lack of an “Android” identifier for Firefox OS is a good thing, in that it provides sites that employ UA detection to detect Firefox OS as a non Android device and subsequently suppress their Android specific endorsements. However, our research has shown that a large number of sites detect the presence of the “Android” token rather than the “Mobile” token to indicate that a client is a mobile device. Firefox OS, therefore, is frequently misidentified as a non mobile device and served desktop content.
For the initial launch of Firefox OS, we created an UA override mechanism the allows Firefox OS to identify itself as Firefox for Android. This mechanism ensures that Firefox OS receives mobile content for top sites. However, this mechanism is a short term solution and does not scale to the scope of the Web. What we want is to clear out this list by having sites recognize Firefox OS as mobile.
The UA override list currently contains 132 entries. All of these sites have undergone some measure of quality assurance from Mozilla or one of our partners and each has been demonstrated to be functional on Firefox OS.
Here’s where we need your help.
Do you, your friend, your relative, or other acquaintance work for one of the sites on this list? If so, please speak with them about changing the site’s UA detection to recognize Firefox OS. If UA detection is to be used, Mozilla’s recommendation is to detect the “Mobi” token, which will allow for the identification of the greatest number of mobile clients.
For your reference, the Firefox OS UA is:
Mozilla/5.0 (Mobile; rv:18.0) Gecko/18.0 Firefox/18.0
Don’t know anyone at any of these sites but would still like to help? Look for other ways to contact the sites. Other ways that we have found to be effective are to ping the site on Twitter, submit a trouble ticket via the site support or feedback forms on their website, or try e-mailing catchall addresses like webmaster@site.com.
The open list of sites with UA overrides can be found in Bugzilla. For your reference, I have also listed the sites that currently have an UA override below.
2013-09-03 Update: Further overrides removed.
2013-03-06 Update: Great support and progress thus far! I will cross off the sites on the list as they are fixed.
11870.com
20minutos.es
4shared.com
abril.com.br
amazon.co.uk
amazon.com
amazon.es
antena3.com
arstechnica.com
as.com
askthebuilder.com
avianca.com
avn.info.ve
bancobrasil.com.br
bb.com.br
bbva.es
bing.com
bol.uol.com.br
booking.com
bumeran.com.ve
ceneo.pl
cheaptickets.com
chevrolet.com
citibank.com
clickjogos.uol.com.br
climatempo.com.br
comunio.es
consumersearch.com
dailymotion.com
deser.pl
despegar.com.ve
deviantart.com
dropbox.com
ebay.com
ebay.es
edmunds.com
ehow.com
einforma.com
elconfidencial.com
elespectador.com
elpais.com.co
enfemenino.com
es.playstation.com
espn.go.com
estadao.com.br
etsy.com
foodily.com
fotocasa.es
foxnewsinsider.com
games.com
gazeta.pl
globo.com
groupon.com.br
hao123.com
icanhas.cheezburger.com
ig.com.br
imdb.com
infojobs.net
ingbank.pl
ingdirect.es
iphonejuegosgratis.com
itau.com.br
lancenet.com.br
lapatilla.com
laverdad.com
letras.mus.br
linkedin.com
live.com
loteriasyapuestas.es
magazineluiza.com.br
mail.google.com
marca.com
maruccisports.com
mercadolibre.com.co
mercadolibre.com.ve
mercadolivre.com.br
meridiano.com.ve
money.pl
movil.bankinter.es
movistar.com.ve
msn.com
nba.com
news.google.com
nk.pl
noticias.uol.com.br
nytimes.com
o2.pl
olx.com.br
olx.com.co
olx.com.ve
orange.es
orbitz.com
orkut.com
orkut.com.br
paginasamarillas.es
pagseguro.uol.com.br
petardas.com
plotek.pl
pontofrio.com.br
publico.es
r7.com
rincondelvago.com
scribd.com
slashgear.com
slideshare.net
sport.pl
stackoverflow.com
starwoodhotels.com
tablica.pl
tam.com.br
techtudo.com.br
tecmundo.com.br
thechive.com
thinkgeek.com
tor.com
tumblr.com
tvn24.pl
txt2nite.com
tylted.com
uol.com.br
urbanspoon.com
vagalume.com.br
vimeo.com
virginatlantic.com
webmotors.com.br
wp.pl
wwwhatsnew.com
wyborcza.biz
wyborcza.pl
yahoo.com
youtube.com
zimbio.com
Lawrence Mandel 
movistar.com.ve is in reality Telefonica in Venezuela you should probably tell them
Thanks for the heads up. I pinged Telephonica in the bug.
I notified to the support account on twitter (@AyudaMovistarVE) about this failure with Firefox OS but also with Firefox for Android
Thanks for the help Leonard!
I will try to help with the others .ve domains, the web is the platform
Thanks again Leonard!
Is the reference UA correct? I thought the last 18 should be 18.0
Good catch Henry. I have updated the UA.
Why not make the UA string contain ‘FirefoxOS like Android’, mirroring WebKit’s ‘AppleWebKit like Gecko’? That would save evangelists’ time for dealing with more serious issues.
A good question and a point that was debated during the discussion about the Firefox OS UA. Take a look at this post for the rationale: https://lawrencemandel.com/2012/07/27/decision-made-firefox-os-user-agent-string/
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A very helpful article from the other side of things! I’ve forwarded it on to the maintainer of HTTP::BrowserDetect, the perl module we use at thinkgeek.com (and a lot of other people use too) to do this kind of thing.
Thanks Kate! Please do point them my way if I can be of help.
I’ve contacted bing.com and will contact the .com.br sites too.
Thanks Rodrigo!
Bing.com said that they’d have to test it on a device before making the change :(.
I’ve contacted most of the .com.br sites but not much progress, this is the tally:
Acknowledged receipt and are considering the change:
bol.uol.com.br
clickjogos.uol.com.br
noticias.uol.com.br
pagseguro.uol.com.br
uol.com.br
itau.com.br
olx.com.br
No reply yet:
climatempo.com.br
estadao.com.br
groupon.com.br
ig.com.br
lancenet.com.br
magazineluiza.com.br
mercadolivre.com.br
orkut.com.br
pontofrio.com.br
tam.com.br
tecmundo.com.br
vagalume.com.br
webmotors.com.br
Sites I couldn’t contact:
bancobrasil.com.br
bb.com.br
techtudo.com.br
Rodrigo – Thank you for the great work contacting all of these sites. For Bing, did you suggest testing in the simulator?
I tried out mail.google.com using the simulator and forcing firefox OS UA and it’s already working.
news.google.com shows desktop if you’re not logged in and mobile when you are.
orkut.com and orkut.com.br (google owned) show mobile sign-in but desktop sign-up. I’ve contacted a friend in google about those.
Thank you for following up on these Google sites. I’ll follow up on removing the mail.google.com override.
Lawrence, if you can confirm these two meridiano.com.ve http://bugzil.la/828430 and avn.info.ve http://bugzil.la/828437 are fixed, I’m going to do the patch for gaia.
Also I’ve been in contact with la verdad.com and despegar.com.ve maybe next week, and mercadoli(b|v)re.com.* they take this bug by twitter.
Last there’s a new site with problems globovision.com http://bugzil.la/855450 but I made a first contact but because they use a plataform provided by another party I’m waiting to contact them
Confirmed. I have opened http://bugzil.la/855721 and http://bugzil.la/855723 to remove the UA overrides. Please do take these and provide the associated patches.
Thanks for the other updates. Do you know what platform globovision relies upon?
According to globovision.com this company http://prowebglobal.com/ is who provides the platform, there’s a phone number for USA maybe you can try to put in contact with them directly to see if the can fix it but maybe globovision need to do the request first.