I see that you have duly updated your post: indeed I do hate "browser sniffing" too - there's been a time I have been called "the wgetter" because of my downloading habits. Back then, I stumbled upon a site that wouldn't let me download anything if I were not on either Exploder or Netscape, err... well... or Opera, I presume. Then I discovered how to send an arbitrary additional header; it was only later that the -U cli switch was added. But somehow you got me shocked yesterday! I was about to answer to the point of PerlMonks not behaving at all the way you described. Which in fact is the case! Indeed, the header I pasted in the root node of this thread was the output of a wget -S! Notwithstanding the fact that I have Live http Headers installed... ;)