Debian Lenny tip: If you absolutely, positively need to make Iceweasel appear as Firefox

The most critical Web site I use in doing my work used to require Internet Explorer to work properly. But the Opera browser did a much quicker and better job (plus it runs on OSes that are not Windows).

Now that Web-delivered app no longer requires IE. We can use Firefox. And it works great.

But ... in Debian Lenny there is no Firefox. Instead, Debian uses the unbranded Firefox equivalent Iceweasel, which is just like Firefox but doesn't included the copyrighted/trademarked Firefox logos or name. It's part of Debian's freedom thing, and I support it. (They also have Icedove instead of Thunderbird and Iceape instead of Seamonkey, in case you were wondering).

However, when I try to use Iceweasel to access my Firefox-compatible Web app, I get an error message and can't continue.

Bad.

However, there's an easy fix: Make your browser tell the world that it's Firefox, not Iceweasel.

I found the fix on the Debian Wiki and quote here from that page:

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To change the user agent string manually so that your browser is identified as 'Firefox' instead of 'Iceweasel'. Do the following.

* In your address bar, type about:config.
* Click the "I'll be careful, I promise!" button.
* Find the Preference Name "general.useragent.extra.firefox".
* Right click the current value that's set for this preference and click "Modify".
* Change "Iceweasel" to "Firefox", leaving the rest of the text alone, and click OK.
*

Check that your browser is now identified as "Firefox" by going to about: in your browser. The Build Identifier should resemble something like this:

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.6) Gecko/2009020409 Firefox/3.0.6 (Debian-3.0.6-1)

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It worked for me. Two easy Debian fixes in one day — I'm on a helluva roll.