google gears,
oh, dear oh, dear.
another website of mine (www.burstofcolour.com) is hosted on a seriously slow server. Cash is short supply atm, so I thought, I’d be smart and install Google Gears as this will help speeding up wordpress.
Follow the link to gears.google.com (temporarily allow scripts from google.com in ScriptBlock) and after a refresh you’d think you’re almost there.
But the clever guys over at Google haven’t figured out that on of the biggest Linux distros Debian, call their browser Iceweasel instead of Firefox, although they’re build from the same sources! It’s some legal issue apparently, but Debian’s interpretation of the GNU PL and shouldn’t concern Google. However Google uses the USER AGENT part of the HTTP REQUEST HEADER to read and id the browser. Of course Iceweasel reports “Iceweasel” and Google prevents the installation.
Simple workaround?
in a new tab, type “about:config” (without the “”) into the address bar and confirm. Click through the warning and search for “useragent” (without the “”) Double click to change the value from
Iceweasel/3.x.x
to:
Firefox/3.x.x
(leave everything after and including the / intact)
The effect is instant, no restart required. Just navigate to gears.google.com and install. Once you’re done, simply revert the value back to Iceweasel.
You just out-smarted google. Even better, there are a few add-ons and plugins/other solutions available that allow you to do this, but why sintall stuff, restart, etc, when this one works a treat!
Share you thoughts in the comments!
