Adam Caudill

Security Leader, Researcher, Developer, Writer, & Photographer

Random User-Agent in VB.NET

This post was imported from an old blog archive, and predates the creation of AdamCaudill.com.

Here’s a simple little example of a dynamic User-Agent in VB.NET. It uses a fairly large list of UA strings, and uses 1 randomly. The code is fairly simple, should be easy to add to any application that needs it.

Code #

Module modRandomUA
    Dim strUA() As String

    Public Sub BuildList()
        Dim sr As IO.StreamReader
        sr = New IO.StreamReader("browser_list.txt")
        strUA = sr.ReadToEnd.Split(ControlChars.CrLf)
        sr.Close()
    End Sub

    Public Function GetUA() As String
        Randomize()
        Return strUA(Int(Rnd() * strUA.GetLongLength(0))).Trim
    End Function
End Module

Usage #

Module Main
    Sub Main()
        BuildList()

        Dim wcClient As New System.Net.WebClient
        Dim bytBuffer As Byte()
        wcClient.Headers.Clear()
        wcClient.Headers.Set("User-Agent", GetUA())
        bytBuffer = wcClient.DownloadData(strURL(i))

    End Sub
End Module

You’ll need this as well: UA List

Adam Caudill