4.1 Retrieving pages

Here are some variables that are used when pages are retrieved.

The HTTP user agent name ‘wwe-http-user-agent-name’ is set to nil for privacy reasons. Only "URL/Emacs Emacs/27.2" will be sent to the web server unless you change this to "WebwithinEmacs" or another name. The User-Agent string would then look something like "WebwithinEmacs/0.1 URL/Emacs Emacs/27.2". See also ‘url-user-agent’ to set a user agent outright.

When you follow links, the current URL is sent to the server as a referrer. Set ‘wwe-hide-referrer’ to t to disable this.

You could also set ‘url-privacy-level’ to disable sending User-Agent, Referer (known there as "last location" and ‘lastloc’), and more - note that some sites don’t allow for an empty or missing User-Agent string. See also ‘url-lastloc-privacy-level’ and the function ‘url-setup-privacy-info’ which you need to run after setting these variables.

If pages are available in multiple languages, the list of your preferred languages in ‘wwe-languages’, "en;q=1.0, de;q=0.9, *;q=0" for example, lets the server know which language to provide for you. This is set to the value of ‘url-mime-language-string’ by default.

WwE requests gzip-encoded compressed pages by default. This sends the HTTP header "Accept-Encoding: gzip" which makes it possible to save bandwidth. To turn off this feature, set ‘wwe-gzip-encoding’ to nil. It also uncompresses archives ending in .gz, .bz2, .Z automatically. Set ‘wwe-auto-uncompress’ to disable this.

The temporary directory used, for example, to copy files before they’re uncompressed is set in ‘wwe-temp-directory’.