Google to phase out user-agent strings in Chrome
Summary
For readers unfamiliar with the term, user-agent (UA) strings are an important part of the modern web and how browsers function. To address these issues, Google said it plans to phase out the importance of UA strings in Chrome by freezing the standard as a whole. Client Hints is a mechanism through which websites can request information about a user, but without "the historical baggage and passive fingerprinting surface exposed by the venerable `User-Agent` header," as the official standard reads. The Client Hints mechanism has been developed as part of Googles Privacy Sandbox project, announced in August last year. Apple (Safari), Microsoft (Edge), and Mozilla (Firefox) have also expressed support for Googles proposal to freeze and phase out the user-agent string, but have not announced detailed plans at the time of writing.
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