Google is seeking to deprecate Chrome’s User Agent string

Google intends to deprecate the user agent string in Chrome. According to the proposal, the first step is to deprecate the "navigator.userAgent" method used to access the User Agent string, suggested to start in March with Chrome 81. This change won't have any visible effect for most people, and websites will continue to work completely as normal. However, web developers will be given explicit warnings in the Chrome development console that retrieving the User Agent string is no longer a good idea. Next, with the release of Chrome 83 in June, Google will begin to freeze, or stop updating, the User Agent string with each update to Chrome. At the same time, Chrome will also "unify" the information shared about your device's operating system, for example meaning that two computers on slightly different Windows 10 updates should have the same User Agent. This will eliminate one more potential fingerprinting method. Finally, beginning in September's Chrome 85 release, every Chrome rowser running on a desktop operating system, such as Windows, macOS, or Linux, will report the exact same User Agent string, eliminating all possible User Agent fingerprinting. Similarly, Chrome 85 will unify the User Agent on mobile devices, though devices will apparently be lumped into one of a few categories based on screen size. User agent strings have long outlived their usefulness, and today only serve to artificially restrict browser access in the stupidest of ways. I'm obviously not comfortable with Google spearheading this effort, so I'm counting on a lot of scrutiny from the web community and other browser makers.