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Is there a way to force websites, when browsing them on your phone, to go into full desktop view? For instance, when I go to the NASCAR website on my phone, it displays a mobile version. But the mobile version doesn't give everything the full desktop site does.

I can trick the site to think I am browsing it on a computer by putting something after the .com,like .com/News and it will work, but then when I go to their homepage by clicking on the logo, it redirects to the mobile version. I am using an Apple iPhone 4 for my device.

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I don't think you can do this in Safari on the iPhone but you could use a 3rd party browser app. Many of those will let you set the browser agent. One browser I know does this is 'Atomic Web Browser'. This may not work in all cases as some websites may use other ways of determining which content to show, for example, some will detect the screen dimensions.

I've tried this on my iPhone with Atomic Web Browser. Within the browser, I went to settings, 'Identify browser as' and selected 'Safari Desktop'. Then I went to nascar.com and tapped on the nascar logo. It showed me the desktop version of the page.

I checked in mobile safari and doing the same indeed took me to a mobile version.

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  • 1
    Thanks for the suggestion! I tried Atomic Web Browser, but to change the agent you have to pay for the full version. I downloaded one called "Mercury" and it gives the option for agents to change to, and it worked like a charm! – C-dizzle Jun 6 '12 at 16:48
  • This is possible in Safari on iPhone. See my answer for iOS 8,9 and 10 apple.stackexchange.com/a/209622/10033 – Jason S Jun 8 '17 at 0:25
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An additional recommendation: the free Puffin browser in the App Store displays full websites.

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Google Chrome for iPhone is my daily driver for Stackexchange and it works wonderfully well both in desktop and mobile modes.

request desktop site

  1. Tap the menu button
  2. Reqest Desktop Site
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Using Safari on iOS 9 and iOS 10 you can hold down the reload icon in the address bar (top right) and then select "Request Desktop Site". You can also tap the share icon (bottom of browser, next to forward arrow), then scroll across to "Request Desktop Site".

You can also do this in Safari on iOS 8 but you must enter the URL, allow it to load, tap the url to bring up the menu, then pull down to unhide the "Add to Favourites" and "Request Desktop Site" options. Then select the "Request Desktop Site" option.

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A 3rd-party web browser should do the trick for you. I recommend iCab Mobile ($1.99).

iCab lets you change the UserAgent you're using, which should trick most websites into serving you the desktop version of their site, and not a watered-down mobile equivalent.

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I used Diigo browser, its got option to identify as desktop browsers and works fine with fb! - FREE too! ;)

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  • Can you provide a link to where you can get this and how does it chnage the identification – mmmmmm Jul 24 '13 at 12:40

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