Menneisyys

At home and while traveling, I need to use a dog-slow and super-expensive GPRS (EDGE) connection to connect to the Internet. Then, every single byte of traffic counts. Therefore, I always try to minimize my Internet traffic from both of my Pocket PC’s and other Windows computers.

One of the methods to drastically reduce the bandwidth used is using Toonel. Its usage has been explained here and, therefore, won’t address in here.

Another, additional method, if you use a desktop PC to access the net, to spoof its User-Agent so that it tells the outside world it’s just a plain Pocket PC web browser.

What’s the point in this? It’s really simple: a lot of Web pages are already PDA-aware. Upon encountering Pocket PC (or other PDA) clients, they return pages that are much smaller and lacking of useless additional content (for example, ads, huge Flash animations etc).

How can it be done?

Get this file: save it on your local desktop PC (right-click the link and choose Save Target As...). Whenever you want to use servers that have PDA-optimization (for example, Google, AximSite, MobilitySite, PocketPCThoughts and its sister sites, FirstLoox etc.) by returning much more bandwidth-usage-friendly pages, just click the file and let it to be imported in the Registry. (Again, this all only concerns desktop browsers. Pocket PC browsers are a different animal – please see this article for more info.)

After this, all new (but not already-open!) Internet Explorer instances will tell the server they are running on a Pocket PC. Note that, however, if you just open a new instance of an existing IE window (with Ctrl-N), the change won’t be seen in there – you must explicitly start a new instance by clicking the IE icon.

How can I switch back?

It’s too very simple. Get this file and just click it whenever you want your desktop IE to tell the outside world it’s a real desktop browser. Then, all new browser instances (again, not already-open ones!) will do this.

For geeks and other interested people, additional info can be found here and in my Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine Expert blog.

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MS MVP- Mobile Devices.

lazyart

That's pretty clever.

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