PocketCastsFeedParser is a bot in the feed fetchers category, operated by Pocket Casts.
Fetches podcast feeds, for playback in the Pocket Casts apps
Feed fetchers poll RSS and Atom feeds for readers, aggregators and podcast apps. They usually request feeds only, so they are cheap to allow. Watch for fetchers that pull full pages at high rates.
PocketCastsFeedParser identifies itself with this user agent string:
PocketCasts/1.0 (Pocket Casts Feed Parser; +http://pocketcasts.com/)Anyone can copy a user agent string. Transfon Security also checks where each request comes from, so a request that claims to be a known crawler but comes from the wrong network is treated as a fake, not as the real crawler.
We have not confirmed whether PocketCastsFeedParser follows robots.txt. Add a rule, then check your logs to see that it stopped. robots.txt is a plain text file at the root of your domain, such as https://example.com/robots.txt.
User-agent: Pocket Disallow: /
User-agent: Pocket Disallow: /private/ Disallow: /search
User-agent: Pocket Allow: /blog/ Disallow: /
User-agent: Pocket Allow: / User-agent: * Disallow: /
User-agent: Pocket group, PocketCastsFeedParser ignores your User-agent: * rules, so repeat any that should still apply.Pocket from PocketCastsFeedParser's user agent; check Pocket Casts's own documentation if it publishes a different robots.txt name.Treat robots.txt as a statement of your policy, and enforce it where requests arrive.
PocketCastsFeedParser fetches pages when your links are shared or syndicated. Keep it allowed so previews and feeds work, but leave it out of page views and ad requests.
Transfon Security for publishersWhen ads or posts are shared, PocketCastsFeedParser fetches the landing page. Those hits are not clicks, so keep them out of campaign reports.
Transfon Security for advertisersProduct links shared in chats and feeds are fetched by PocketCastsFeedParser. Keep it allowed so previews show the right image and price.
Transfon Security for e-commerceAllow PocketCastsFeedParser on public pages so shared links preview well, and keep it off the app.
Transfon Security for SaaS and APIsrobots.txt is a request, not an enforcement. Transfon Security shows PocketCastsFeedParser by name in the Top Bots report, so you can see how often it visits and which pages it reads. Block or allow it with a User Agent rule, or slow it down with a rate limit decision rule.
Transfon Security
PocketCastsFeedParser is a bot in the feed fetchers category, operated by Pocket Casts. Fetches podcast feeds, for playback in the Pocket Casts apps
We have not confirmed whether PocketCastsFeedParser follows robots.txt. Add a robots.txt rule, then check your logs to see that it stopped, and block it by user agent if it did not.
Add "User-agent: Pocket" followed by "Disallow: /" to the robots.txt file at the root of your site. To enforce it, block requests whose user agent contains "Pocket Casts Feed Parser" at your WAF. In Transfon Security that is one User Agent block rule.
No. robots.txt is voluntary, so PocketCastsFeedParser may not follow it, and anyone can send PocketCastsFeedParser's user agent, so a fake PocketCastsFeedParser ignores your rule. Enforce the rule where requests arrive, at your WAF, and check the source network.
Feed fetchers poll RSS and Atom feeds for readers, aggregators and podcast apps. They usually request feeds only, so they are cheap to allow. Watch for fetchers that pull full pages at high rates.
Transfon Security identifies every bot in this directory in your traffic reports, flags fake search crawlers, and lets you allow, block or rate limit each bot.
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