You CAN change the referrer header on WP7

There are a few threads complaining that you can’t set the referrer header on an HTTP request from Silverlight in WP7:

HttpWebRequest and Referer field on a WP Silverlight App

Odd behavior with the Image control and the HTTP Referer Header

httpwebrequest and referer header

However, it’s currently possible relatively easily:

WebClient webClient = new WebClient();
webClient.Headers[HttpRequestHeader.Referer] = "http://foo.com";

If your calls to a web service are failing on the WP7 and not in a browser, this may be the cause. Silverlight on the phone automatically sets the referrer to be the installation on the phone:

Referer: file:///Applications/Install/ ... /Install/

Some web services consider this to be an ill-formed request.

7 Notes/ Hide

  1. wtfnth posted this