How to Change the aria2 Default User-Agent String?

When downloading files using the aria2 command-line utility, you can change the default user-agent string presented to HTTP/HTTPS servers by using the --user-agent flag. Modifying this string is often necessary when servers block the default aria2 identifier or require a specific browser signature to allow the download.

To implement this change, you simply append the flag followed by your desired user-agent string in quotes when executing your command.

aria2c --user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64)" "URL"

If you frequently need to use a custom user-agent, you can also add this configuration permanently to your aria2.conf file by adding the line user-agent=YourCustomString. This ensures that all subsequent download requests automatically mask the utility’s default identity without needing to specify the flag every time in the terminal.