rivviepop phantom :: knowledge in passing

The list, updates/additions welcome:

http://rivviepop.wordpress.com/nokia-symbian-user-agents/

Sometimes you want to download content on your real computer for your handset – such as SIS or SISX installers from Nokia – but the website won’t allow you unless you’re actually using your phone to do the task. This can be really inconvenient depending on your circumstances; sometimes your GPRS/EDGE/WIFI/3G connection is really slow, sometimes you want to download a paid-for installer and save it, or sometimes you want to download content for a device that you’re not actually using (i.e. N71 app to run on an E50).

You can do this, however, with a few simple tools – all open source, cross platform (Win/Mac/Linux) and lightweight in nature. In fact, setting this up will allow you to browse the general web as if you were your handset – useful for viewing WAP website content as well in general.

Basic Setup

1) Install Firefox. Really, you should be using Firefox already, so this almost goes without saying. But in case you’re late to the party, go here:

http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/

== Start Firefox and continue – don’t try and use IE or Safari ==

2) Install the “WAP XHTML” extension for Firefox. This allows you to view content sent to your browser with the “application/vnd.wap.xhtml+xml” mime type as used on the Nokia Mobile website. Go here:

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1345/

3) Install the “WML Browser” extension for Firefox. This allows you to view content sent to your browser as WML (Wireless Markup Language), which is the lighterweight version of the above XHTML mobile content type. While the Nokia site doesn’t use/need this, many others will. Go here:

http://wmlbrowser.mozdev.org/installation/wmlbrowser.html

4) Install the “User Agent Switcher” extension for Firefox. This will allow you to dynamically change the identifier you send a website (aka “user agent”) with one of the ones from my list, so you can masquerade as a phone. Go here:

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/59/

5) Restart Firefox to finalize the installation of the above extensions.

Configuration

Go to Tools -> User Agent Switcher -> Options -> Options… from the main menu bar. A dialog will appear. In the left column list, select “User Agents”. On the right is a button labeled “Add…”, click it. Enter the desired user agent string, I will use the Nokia E50 here as my example:

Description: Nokia E50
User Agent: NokiaE50-1/3.0 (06.27.1.0) SymbianOS/9.1 Series60/3.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1
App Name: Nokia
App Version: E50

Click OK to add it, and repeat as many times as you like to add more user agents. When finished, click OK to dismiss the entire dialog window.

Example Usage

Nokia has a nifty application for the E-Series called “WorldMate”. You can install it using the Catalogs feature on your handset, or general browsing of the website from your handset; however, it downloads and installs as a single action. This leads to two problems: it’s 1.3meg and might be a really slow download, and what happens if you reformat your device and want to reinstall it? So, let’s download the installer to our computer instead.

Note: for this app, it’s the same install file for E50/E60/E61/E70, so any of those user agents will work.

1) In Firefox, go to Tools -> User Agent Switcher -> Nokia E50.

2) Load the website:

http://ea.mobile.nokia.com/

You will be asked to choose a region, usually Europe, Asia Pacific, or Greater China. We’ll choose Europe.

3) You will automatically get redirected to the E50 “spin” page (as Nokia calls them), where one of the choices is “Downloads” on the right. After selecting Downloads, you’ll get a menu with things like Applications, Games, Themes, etc. – the exact content will vary. We’ll choose Applications. And finally, we’ll choose “WorldMate” from the list of possible apps.

Now normally you’d be presented with another page where you could click to download the installer file – however, for this example there’s a bug (I guess) in the XHTML, and Firefox throws up an error page: “XML Parsing Error: not well-formed”. Don’t fret, we’re smarter than it is.

4) Right-mouse click and choose “View Page Source”. Hit Control+F (Find), and type “sis” and click Find Next. You’ll see an internal link that looks like this:

../contentitem/applications/WorldMateTPO_NokiaE60_E70_E61_E50_v_3_2_49.sisx

Notice it’s a relative link (../), so we have to do one more level of mojo magic. We take the URL from the urlbar at the top, chop off the actual page name, and append the relative URL to it. Then we load that URL, which downloads the file.

http://ea.mobile.nokia.com/content/spin/ea/E50/en/dlitem/item_1229.xhtml
+
../contentitem/applications/WorldMateTPO_NokiaE60_E70_E61_E50_v_3_2_49.sisx
=
http://ea.mobile.nokia.com/content/spin/ea/E50/en/contentitem/applications/WorldMateTPO_NokiaE60_E70_E61_E50_v_3_2_49.sisx

This whole last step is a pain, but if you really want that app this is the way to get at it. Other app downloads linked from the Applications page (F-Secure, Golf Pro, etc.) don’t have this problem, so it’s really WorldMate page specific. But hey, I was after WorldMate to begin with so it was needed.

Conclusion

This whole process sounds tougher than it is, or that it takes more time than you think. Really, other than the time taken to get Firefox on your computer it will take all of 10 minutes to be able to masquerade as your phone and download mobile content.

Have fun!