User-Agent

HTTP header that tells the web server what type of web browser requested the file.

The header often includes browser name, version number and operating system, perhaps some other information.

The web browser I used to send this writeup, for example, sent this:

User-Agent: Mozilla/4.7 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.2.13 i686)

Maybe the header was named "Agent" so that it would be somewhat sexy - maybe it makes net surfers think they're like James Bond, always after some information.

User-Agent: Bond/007 (James Bond; 007; UK; Licence to Kill)

User-Agent is not exclusive to http. For example, an email I just sent to myself came with this header

User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i

and a recent post of mine to usenet bears the following header

User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-19990517 ("Psychonaut") (UNIX) (SunOS/5.7 (sun4u))

I'm sure User-Agent can be found many other places as well.