Is there information passed to the browser that can tell a site what application accessed it, besides sending parameters?

Question

I have an application that uses the devices default browser to access a URL from the application. Besides sending parameters in the URL is there anyway to tell what application and type of device (android or ios) accessed the browser or requested the URL?

Answer 1

Short answer is no. If user just clicks a link, you can pass parameters only in URL. But some of data you requires can be stored in HTTP header by the browser (client), i.e. user agent (browser), or OS

Answer 2

Almost all web browsers and the WebView or UIWebView sends information about the OS, device in the User-Agent header. In case of an embedded WebView or UIWebView, the developer can choose to override the value sent in the header. But in the case of the default browser, as you had mentioned, there is no general solution to alter the header value other than configuring it in every browser.

Answering your question, yes, it is possible to figure out which platform (and additionally the device) the request comes from by looking at the User-Agent.

The list of the User-Agent strings can be found in http://www.zytrax.com/tech/web/mobile_ids.html