Homebrew Better Wii Web Browser Experience

[LightyKD]

Some months ago someone on this forum figured out how to change the Wii Browser's signature to fake sites to think (if I remember correctly) that it was Opera for the Desktop. Is there any chance we could get the browser to fake the same signature as the native Android browser. I know that Google's family of sites are very mobile friendly on the native Android browser but go to those same mobile sites and on the Wii they look like something from the late 90's. It's not as if the Wii couldn't handle these new mobile setups and they would look ten times better for the Opera Browser. Surfing around these days, a lot of mobile sites are starting to look similar to their Android apps and in the end, this could make web browsing on the Wii a lot friendlier. Let me hear your thoughts people. In regards to the Wii browser, what should be done?

1) Leave it alone

2) Just edit the signature for better site viewing compatibility

3) Find some way to fool with flash

or

4) Finally make a rival HomeBrew web browser.

 

[JoostinOnline]

The Internet Channel is an Opera based browser.

Edit: Look in the bottom right corner:

 

[LightyKD]

um

The Internet Channel is an Opera based browser.

Edit: Look in the bottom right corner:

Um duh...

Does not mean that a browser cant fake identification. Skyfire on Android has three modes one being "Android" the second being "Desktop" and lastly a "default" mode. Safari used to have a option where you could fake a Internet Explorer signature for sites that wanted people to use IE. Its not a matter of changing the browser completely. It's a matter of making the browser give out false information of achieve a goal. In this case, better viewing of "mobile sites".

 

[JoostinOnline]

Unless you can provide a link, I don't believe that anything was being "faked". It is an Opera browser, and sites recognize it as such. There is nothing strange about that.

 

[Rydian]

JO, this isn't far-fetched at all, it's just changing the user-agent string.

 

[JoostinOnline]

JO, this isn't far-fetched at all, it's just changing the user-agent string.

I'll admit that this isn't something I really understand. However, I don't see why an Opera browser being detected as an Opera browser requires anything. It sounds to me like somebody downloaded the Internet Channel, used it, and then claimed "woot! I figured out how to do nothing make sites think that this is an Opera browser".

I also don't get how you would change something on a closed source browser.

 

[Rydian]

It sounds like they just forgot what browser it posed as and tossed what they thought it was.

OR that instead, it poses as a different version of Opera (mobile/standard) so websites serve up different page styles.

And the Wii's hacked and you can fuck with installed programs... modifying text strings in them is a cakewalk to some people.

 

[bowser]

I think the OP wants the internet channel to fake itself as a mobile Opera browser so the mobile versions of websites load up by default. I guess it currently identifies itself as a desktop Opera browser.

 

[LightyKD]

OK let me clarify a few things. The whole changing the identification of the Wii's browser was first introduced a few years ago before the 2009 update of the Opera browser. Back then the community actually cared about finding a way around the flash 7 issue. What I would like to see is someone changing the Wii's browser to identify as the Android browser. That way pages show up better on the Wii and in some way it keeps the Wii's browser useful. Hell we could even take it a step further and take those website bookmark channels, from a few years ago, find all of the mobile sites that look similar to their Android apps (Gmail, Google +, Facebook touch version, all when viewed under Android) and make "app style" channels. This gives the Wii the impression of being more useful and alive. Heck, isn't this the fun of smart phones? -always finding a new apps to make our devices feel "alive". This right here has the potential to change things in the Wii community. Heck there are plenty of sites that act as web apps. I don't see where trying would hurt anything.

 

[JoostinOnline]

And the Wii's hacked and you can fuck with installed programs... modifying text strings in them is a cakewalk to some people.

What people? I've done a lot of modding myself (I've even dabbled in some homebrew), I've replaced files in games, but I've never modified a close source channel.

@LightyKD: Do you have any idea how to do it? I'd also still like that link from "some months ago".

 

[tueidj]

What people? I've done a lot of modding myself (I've even dabbled in some homebrew), I've replaced files in games, but I've never modified a close source channel.

What do you think peeloader does every time it starts the system menu?

 

[SifJar]

Replacing strings isn't a hugely difficult thing to do. It is akin to patching IOS. Get WAD, decrypt contents, modify, package to WAD, fakesign, install.

If you just search in each of the contents of the channel with a hex editor, you may be able to find the user-agent string. Alternatively, one or more of the contents could be U8 archives, containing more easily modifiable files, one of which may contain the string.

Another possible approach is to setup a proxy and connect through it, having set it to change your user agent.

 

[LightyKD]

And the Wii's hacked and you can fuck with installed programs... modifying text strings in them is a cakewalk to some people.

What people? I've done a lot of modding myself (I've even dabbled in some homebrew), I've replaced files in games, but I've never modified a close source channel.

@LightyKD: Do you have any idea how to do it? I'd also still like that link from "some months ago".

My goodness bro! I'm not going to go search through years worth of threads just to prove something that is common information IF you were paying attention. As for that other post stating the Wii's browser identifies as opera desktop. That wasn't right. Opera for the Wii has it's own signature and identifies as "Opera for Wii". In that flash thread and if I remember correctly the guys editing the browser changed the ID from "Opera for Wii" to "Opera for desktop" to get certain flash sites to stop giving the "need flash 10" warnings. Granted with that don't it only allowed for easier browsing of certain sites and not viewing of flash 10 video.

For this thread, flash video is not the objective. Right now the Wii's browser could use some help. With smart phone friendly sites on the rise, it's only logical that to keep the Wii's browser on par with anything available these days, we should make the system's browser more mobile like. Now with that said I'm not some programming genius. I'm just a "Think Tank". I pay attention to everything, review and come up with ideas that most people overlook but are totally possible with the tools already stated earlier. As much as I would like to see someone start on this project I know that there has to be a willing programmer. It's my job as that "think tank" to give any "listening" programmers a proper reason why such ideas would benefit the community and if needed, risk my own console in testing phases to help the progress of such a project.

 

[JoostinOnline]

What people? I've done a lot of modding myself (I've even dabbled in some homebrew), I've replaced files in games, but I've never modified a close source channel.

What do you think peeloader does every time it starts the system menu?

Like I said earlier, this issue isn't something I really understand. I know very little about browsers, and have only used the Internet Channel a couple of times (I've never used Opera on a computer and I don't have a smartphone).

Are we talking about hex edits, cheat codes, or something else?

 

[Jakob95]

Lmao... What hes trying to say is if there is a way, to make the Internet Channel on the Wii make websites think that you are either browsing the website on an Android device, or a desktop.

Let me give you this example, if you go to YouTube.com on the Wii web browser you are going to get the YouTube TV for Wii website instead. But if you were able to change the way the browser worked and made it fool the website to think that the device is an Android/iOS device then instead you will go to the YouTube Mobile website right away. If you made it fool a desktop browser, then when you go on YouTube.com you will right away go to the regular YouTube.com website.

Am I getting this right?

 

[SifJar]

What people? I've done a lot of modding myself (I've even dabbled in some homebrew), I've replaced files in games, but I've never modified a close source channel.

What do you think peeloader does every time it starts the system menu?

Like I said earlier, this issue isn't something I really understand. I know very little about browsers, and have only used the Internet Channel a couple of times (I've never used Opera on a computer and I don't have a smartphone).

Are we talking about hex edits, cheat codes, or something else?

Depends. Like I said before, quite clearly, it is a case of modifying the WAD and installing it. Whether that is by hex edit or something simpler depends on how the channel is made. I am currently simply assuming it is possible, due to the reports above of it having already occurred.

The same thing could most likely be achieved by a cheat code, seeing as they essentially just edit values in memory, which in this case would be the values loaded from the channel's contents. So in effect, it would just be an on-the-fly method of patching the WAD.

 

[LightyKD]

Lmao... What hes trying to say is if there is a way, to make the Internet Channel on the Wii make websites think that you are either browsing the website on an Android device, or a desktop.

Let me give you this example, if you go to YouTube.com on the Wii web browser you are going to get the YouTube TV for Wii website instead. But if you were able to change the way the browser worked and made it fool the website to think that the device is an Android/iOS device then instead you will go to the YouTube Mobile website right away. If you made it fool a desktop browser, then when you go on YouTube.com you will right away go to the regular YouTube.com website.

Am I getting this right?

CORRECT!

-Considering that sites like Youtube XL on Wii are lacking features compared to the Youtube mobile site when viewed on Android. It's just another reason to change the ID.

 

[SifJar]

A "simple" solution, no modding or anything required (Wii doesn't even need to have homebrew):

Get Proximodo from here: http://proximodo.sourceforge.net/
Run Proximodo on computer.
Goto "Settings" and tick the box "Allow IP range" (leave 0.0.0.0 and 255.255.255.255 as the start and finish)
Goto "Config", find the "Identification" listing, expand it, then double-click any of the "Agent" listings. In the window that appears, change the text in the bottom box to the desired user-agent. Optionally rename. Close editor window.
Tick the box beside whichever listing you edited.
Follow these instructions to setup your Wii to connect via proxy (use your IP address as the proxy address - get it by pressing Win+R, typing "cmd", press enter, command window appears, type "ipconfig -all" and press enter, it should be listed) : http://www.hidemynet...m/?a=setup&t=30

You should now be able to connect and the user agent given will be the one you entered. You can check the user agent here: http://whatsmyuseragent.com/

Downside: you must have PC on and Proximodo running any time you want to connect your Wii to the internet.

EDIT: Been poking around the internet channel. Haven't found user agent yet, but found something else:

If you extract 0000002c.app (it's a U8 archive), you will find a file called "filter.ini", with the following contents:

[prefs]
prioritize excludelist=0

[include]
file://*

[exclude]
*

Looks like this file prevents file:// URLs from being opened. If you remove that line, you should be able to open local files from SD card perhaps. (e.g. flash games etc.)

i.e. making the file like this:

[prefs]
prioritize excludelist=0

[include]

[exclude]
*

EDIT: Most of the contents are U8 archives, looks like within that are some ARCs. I haven't poked around too much, but what I did see is loads of images, in common formats (PNGs, GIFs - not TPLs) that could presumably be edited pretty easily to change the look of Opera. There is also a large number of JS files (looks like a lot of stuff is written in JavaScript, could probably be easily edited if there was some benefit to doing so) and HTML files (most pages displayed e.g. start page, bookmarks page, "about page" page etc. are all HTML files) - could again most likely be edited to change the look of Opera.

Looks quite modifiable to someone with the time and some JS and HTML know-how. What could come of it I don't know, but I'm sure somewhere in there there is quite possibly a way to change the user agent.

On a side note, I did notice a few icons that aren't used (e.g. icons for downloads) - just leftover files from PC Opera, or clues about disabled features? Perhaps someone poking around the channel a bit more could reveal the answer. I'd guess it's quite possibly the former, but if it were indeed the later and they could be enabled, it'd be pretty cool.

 

[Wiimpathy]

When you send a request to a server in html, you send a header which contains info such as the encoding, the language, the user agent etc...
With some linux tool like wget, the user-agent can be useful to access restrictive sites or forums using google bot for example. In firefox, there's some extensions (user agent switcher) to achieve this too.

Here, on Wii, as others said the most difficult is not to change the string but to modify the wad, well it should be possible...
But, what's the purpose of this ? Watch youtube video ? That won't change the fact there's no java or latest flash in opera wii and most android apps are coded in java. Well, personnally I don't think it's really worth it except maybe a better display for some websites.

 

[Maav]

@SifJar
Could you pack a NTSC-U .wad with the include line off, please?
I wanna test something. (Running a .dol/.elf from the SD with the browser)