@zorilla/puppeteer-extra-plugin-anonymize-ua

A plugin for puppeteer-extra that anonymizes the user agent string.

Features

• 🎭 Removes "HeadlessChrome" signature from user agent
• 🪟 Optionally changes platform to Windows 10 64-bit (most common)
• 🔧 Supports custom user agent transformation functions
• ⚡ Works with both Puppeteer and Playwright
• 🌐 Preserves actual Chrome version for authenticity

Installation

npm install @zorilla/puppeteer-extra-plugin-anonymize-ua

Usage

Basic Usage

import puppeteer from '@zorilla/puppeteer-extra'
import AnonymizeUA from '@zorilla/puppeteer-extra-plugin-anonymize-ua'

puppeteer.use(AnonymizeUA())

const browser = await puppeteer.launch()
const page = await browser.newPage()
// User agent will be anonymized automatically

With Options

import puppeteer from '@zorilla/puppeteer-extra'
import AnonymizeUA from '@zorilla/puppeteer-extra-plugin-anonymize-ua'

puppeteer.use(AnonymizeUA({
  stripHeadless: true,   // Remove HeadlessChrome (default: true)
  makeWindows: true,     // Set platform to Windows (default: true)
  customFn: null         // Custom transformer function (default: null)
}))

const browser = await puppeteer.launch()

Custom User Agent Function

puppeteer.use(AnonymizeUA({
  customFn: (ua) => 'MyCoolAgent/' + ua.replace('Chrome', 'Beer')
}))

Disable Modifications

puppeteer.use(AnonymizeUA({
  stripHeadless: false,  // Keep HeadlessChrome
  makeWindows: false     // Keep original platform
}))

API

Plugin Options

stripHeadless boolean (default: true)

• Replace HeadlessChrome with Chrome in the user agent string
• Helps avoid headless browser detection

makeWindows boolean (default: true)

• Sets the platform to Windows 10, 64-bit (most common desktop platform)
• Replaces the platform portion of the user agent with (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64)

customFn ((ua: string) => string) | null (default: null)

• Custom function to transform the user agent string
• Receives the user agent after stripHeadless and makeWindows transformations
• Return the modified user agent string

How It Works

The plugin hooks into the onPageCreated lifecycle event and modifies the user agent for each new page:

1. Gets the current browser user agent
2. Applies stripHeadless transformation (if enabled)
3. Applies makeWindows transformation (if enabled)
4. Applies customFn transformation (if provided)
5. Sets the modified user agent on the page

This approach preserves the actual Chrome version number, making the browser appear more authentic.

Examples

Before (Default Headless Chrome)

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) HeadlessChrome/131.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

After (With Default Options)

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) Chrome/131.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Debugging

Enable debug logging to see user agent transformations:

DEBUG=puppeteer-extra-plugin:anonymize-ua node your-script.js

License

MIT