Hacker News Reader

If you’re making automated requests, I consider it a common courtesy to provide an accurate user agent.

Some services like Wikimedia will let you browse/download with rate limits IF your user agent is descriptive enough and not misleading.

View on HN

Thanks, I wasn't aware of this. But to put your real name in the field instead of at least a pseudonymous id or more descriptive info but still have more bits of uncertainty user-agent for a public website, is that really a preferred practice?

As a website owner, if I saw someone scraping with a realistic looking name + email address I'd definitely give them more latitude than someone trying to hide the fact they're scraping. In my experience people who are hiding the fact are much more likely to be doing something nefarious.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com