Chrome phasing out support for User-Agent • Hacker News Board

Re: Chrome phasing out support for User-Agent

#201

Post by jefftk » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 9:49 PM UTC

vxNsr wrote: post #196

jefftk wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switching it from passive to active means you can count it towards https://github.com/bslassey/privacy-budget . Yes, sites can ask for all sorts of things, but if they ask for enough that they could plausibly be fingerprinting you then they start seeing their requests denied. (Disclosure: I work at Google, speaking only for myself)

Is the "privacy budget" an actual feature of chrome or just an idea? I've never heard of it until now.

It's a proposal for how to prevent fingerprinting: https://blog.chromium.org/2019/08/potential-uses-for-privacy...

Re: Chrome phasing out support for User-Agent

#202

Post by olyjohn » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 9:54 PM UTC

recursive wrote: post #198

tryptophan wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its absurd that paying customers get a worse experience than just using the piratebay.

Last time I used piratebay, I saw a lot of porn and malware/scam ads. I had to find and install a torrent client. Then I had to make sure I was downloading a movie that had enough seeders. And then I couldn't watch the movie until (and if) the download finished. When I use netflix, I have a much better experience.

I know this is all anecdotal, but last time I used a torrent site, I found the movie immediately and it pulled the whole thing down in under 3 minutes. Could be that it was a newer movie and pretty popular. I do see a lot of older stuff that's not being seeded much anymore.

Re: Chrome phasing out support for User-Agent

#203

Post by serf » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 9:55 PM UTC

Rebelgecko wrote: post #189

gowld wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your site doesn't use JS, you don't need features. Just use responsive HTML.

How do you handle browsers that render HTML differently?

the realistic answer to this line of questioning is : "we don't care about the edges because they constitute such a small percentage of the user base."

Re: Chrome phasing out support for User-Agent

#204

Post by mcdevilkiller » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 10:08 PM UTC

chii wrote: post #199

recursive wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I used piratebay, I saw a lot of porn and malware/scam ads. I had to find and install a torrent client. Then I had to make sure I was downloading a movie that had enough seeders. And then I couldn't watch the movie until (and if) the download finished. When I use netflix, I have a much better experience.

You obviously haven't tried popcorntime.

One of the best solutions out there.

Re: Chrome phasing out support for User-Agent

#205

Post by jacobolus » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 10:11 PM UTC

jorams wrote: post #36

The weird thing about this is that the only company I've seen doing problematic user-agent handling in recent years is Google themselves. They have released several products as Chrome-only, which then turned out to work fine in every other browser if they just pretended to be Chrome through the user agent. Same with their search pages, which on mobile were very bad in every non-Chrome browser purely based on user age…

Here in Safari, Gmail is not only 10x buggier than it used to be before the redesign, it also uses at least 10x more client-side resources (CPU, network, ...). A handful of open Gmail tabs single-handedly use more CPU over here than hundreds of other web pages open simultaneously, including plenty of heavyweight app-style pages.

It’s hard to escape the conclusion that Google’s front-end development process is completely incompetent and has no respect for customers’ battery or bandwidth.

Re: Chrome phasing out support for User-Agent

#206

Post by ahmedalsudani » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 10:16 PM UTC

stirner wrote: post #146

Meanwhile, you can still use youtube.com/tv to control playback on your PC from your phone—but only if you spoof your User-Agent to that of the Nintendo Switch [1]. Sounds like they are more interested in phasing out user control than ignoring the header entirely. [1] https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/16442768?hl=en&msg...

Oh wow. I used that in the past and it worked great. I didn’t realize Google broke it only to force us to use their app.

What a bunch of turds.

Thank you for the Nintendo Switch pro-tip.

Re: Chrome phasing out support for User-Agent

#207

Post by DaiPlusPlus » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 10:27 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #88

uk_programmer wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that without User Agent sniffing in some circumstances there is no other way of working round a browser bug e.g. There are cases where browsers will report that it supports such feature using one of the feature checks but the implementation is garbage. The only way is to have a work around based on user-agent sniffing. Sure a lot of developers abuse the feature but I fear this might create another set…

The other way is not using that feature until all browsers you care about implement it correctly.

That’s not a pragmatic solution.

Re: Chrome phasing out support for User-Agent

#208

Post by bunchOfCucks » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 10:37 PM UTC

Geeks on a power trip. Never was a good idea seen

Re: Chrome phasing out support for User-Agent

#209

Post by marakv2 » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 10:59 PM UTC

freeopinion wrote: post #195

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Obvious solution to which being... Installing an extension to spoof your user agent? Since we wouldn't want to reward Google being anti-competitive.

Or... quit using buggy app?

Except, that has been pointed out in the parent comments, it's not the application, it's a deliberate bug targeted towards a different browser(hence changing the user agent fixes it).

Re: Chrome phasing out support for User-Agent

#210

Post by ksec » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 11:08 PM UTC

_jal wrote: post #127

llbeansandrice wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh my god. I knew it was inserting a line break when I hit enter but I didn't realize it was a FF only issue. gdi Google.

Not the first time. For some reason Google really doesn't like people talking about the games they play with browser detection. (That's not snark - I really don't get it. They don't appear to mind people talking negatively about a lot of other stuff they get up to. Maybe lingering antitrust fears from the 90's MS suit?)

I mean we are in 2020, none of this should be news, but then a lot of people only discovered them now. They have been doing this since early 2010s.

They have been a hypocrite from the start, but people got too consumed with its free Gmail, RSS Reader along with its Do no Evil they decided to trust them blindly.

The current browser, and Web Tech scenario is pretty much Google's way or the highway. So I am glad Apple kept Safari as the only option on Apple platform. Not allowing them to dictate everything.