Strategies to migrate your site from relying on the user-agent string to the
new User-Agent Client Hints.
 Rowan Merewood [GitHub](https://github.com/rowan-m) [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/rowanmerewood) [Mastodon](https://mastodon.social/@rowan_m) [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/rowan.fyi) [Homepage](https://rowan.fyi)
Published: May 19, 2021
The [User-Agent
string](https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/User-Agent) is
a significant [passive fingerprinting
surface](https://w3c.github.io/fingerprinting-guidance/#passive) in browsers, as
well as being difficult to process. However, there are all kinds of valid
reasons for collecting and processing user-agent data, so what's needed is a
path to a better solution.
[User-Agent Client Hints](https://developer.chrome.com/docs/privacy-security/user-agent-client-hints)
provide both an explicit way to declare your need for user-agent data and
methods to return the data in an easy-to-use format.
Here, we take you through auditing your access to user-agent data and
migrating user-agent string usage to User-Agent Client Hints.
Browser Support
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[Source](https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Web/API/Navigator/userAgentData)
## Audit collection and use of user-agent data
As with any form of data collection, you should always understand **why** you
are collecting it. The first step, regardless of whether or not you will be
taking any action, is to understand where and why you are using user-agent data.
If you don't know if or where user-agent data is being used, consider searching
your frontend code for use of `navigator.userAgent` and your backend code for
use of the `User-Agent` HTTP header. You should also check your frontend code
for use of already deprecated features, such as `navigator.platform` and
`navigator.appVersion`.
From a functional point of view, think about anywhere in your code where you are
recording or processing:
- Browser name or version
- Operating system name or version
- Device make or model
- CPU type, architecture, or bitness (for example, 64-bit)
It's also likely that you may be using a third-party library or service to
process the user-agent. In this case, check to see if they are updating to
support User-Agent Client Hints.
### Are you only using basic user-agent data?
The default set of User-Agent Client Hints includes:
- `Sec-CH-UA`: browser name and major / significant version
- `Sec-CH-UA-Mobile`: boolean value indicating a mobile device
- `Sec-CH-UA-Platform`: operating system name
The reduced version of the user-agent string that is proposed will also retain
this basic information in a backwards-compatible way. For example, instead of
`Chrome/90.0.4430.85` the string would include `Chrome/90.0.0.0`.
If you are only checking the user-agent string for browser name, major version,
or operating system, then your code will continue to work though you are likely
to see deprecation warnings.
While you can and should migrate to User-Agent Client Hints, you may have legacy
code or resource constraints that prevent this. The reduction of information in
the user-agent string in this backwards-compatible way is intended to ensure
that while existing code will receive less detailed information, it should still
retain basic functionality.
## Strategies
There are a number of strategies you can take to migrate user-agent string usage
to User-Agent Client Hints.
### On-demand client-side JavaScript API
If you're using `navigator.userAgent`, you should transition to
preferring `navigator.userAgentData` before falling back to parsing the
user-agent string.
```javascript
if (navigator.userAgentData) {
// use new hints
} else {
// fall back to user-agent string parsing
}
```
If you're checking for mobile or desktop, use the boolean `mobile` value:
```javascript
const isMobile = navigator.userAgentData.mobile;
```
`userAgentData.brands` is an array of objects with `brand` and `version`
properties where the browser is able to list its compatibility with those
brands. You can access it directly as an array or you may want to use a
`some()` call to check if a specific entry is present:
```javascript
function isCompatible(item) {
// In real life you most likely have more complex rules here
return ['Chromium', 'Google Chrome', 'NewBrowser'].includes(item.brand);
}
if (navigator.userAgentData.brands.some(isCompatible)) {
// browser reports as compatible
}
```
> [!TIP]
> **Tip:** `userAgentData.brands` contains varying values in a varied order. Avoid relying on something that appears at a certain index.
If you need one of the more detailed, high-entropy user-agent values, you
need to specify it and check for the result in the returned `Promise`:
```javascript
navigator.userAgentData.getHighEntropyValues(['model'])
.then(ua => {
// requested hints available as attributes
const model = ua.model
});
```
You may also want to use this strategy if you would like to move from
server-side processing to client-side processing. The JavaScript API does not
require access to HTTP request headers, so user-agent values can be requested at
any point.
> [!NOTE]
> **Note:** Try the [User-Agent Client Hints JavaScript API demo](https://user-agent-client-hints.glitch.me/javascript.html).
### Static server-side header
If you are using the `User-Agent` request header on the server and your needs
for that data are relatively consistent across your entire site, then you can
specify client hints as a static set in your responses. This is a
relatively simple approach since you generally only need to configure it in one
location. For example, it may be in your web server configuration if you already
add headers there, your hosting configuration, or top-level configuration of the
framework or platform you use for your site.
Consider this strategy if you are transforming or customizing the responses
served based on the user-agent data.
> [!NOTE]
> **Note:** Consider migrating to the [on-demand client-side JavaScript API](https://web.dev/articles/migrate-to-ua-ch.md.txt#on-demand_client-side_javascript_api) strategy instead of sending additional headers.
Browsers or other clients may choose to supply different default hints, so it's
good practice to specify everything you need, even if it's generally provided by
default.
For example, the current defaults for Chrome would be represented as:
⬇️ Response headers
```text
Accept-CH: Sec-CH-UA-Mobile, Sec-CH-UA-Platform, Sec-CH-UA
```
If you also wanted to receive the device model in responses, then you would
send:
⬇️ Response headers
```text
Accept-CH: Sec-CH-UA-Mobile, Sec-CH-UA-Model, Sec-CH-UA-Platform, Sec-CH-UA
```
> [!TIP]
> **Tip:** Ordering is not important, the example is listed alphabetically.
When processing this on the server-side you should first check if the desired
`Sec-CH-UA` header has been sent and then fallback to the `User-Agent` header
parsing if it is not available.
> [!NOTE]
> **Note:** Try the [User-Agent Client Hints HTTP header demo](https://user-agent-client-hints.glitch.me/).
### Delegate hints to cross-origin requests
If you are requesting cross-origin or cross-site subresources that require
User-Agent Client Hints to be sent on their requests then you will need to
explicitly specify the desired hints using a
[Permissions Policy](https://developer.chrome.com/docs/privacy-security/permissions-policy).
> [!NOTE]
> **Note:** Permissions Policy is the new form of Feature Policy.
For example, let's say that `https://blog.site` hosts resources on
`https://cdn.site` which can return resources optimized for a specific device.
`https://blog.site` can ask for the `Sec-CH-UA-Model` hint, but needs to
explicitly delegate it to `https://cdn.site` using the `Permissions-Policy`
header. The list of policy-controlled hints is available in the [Clients Hints
Infrastructure
draft](https://wicg.github.io/client-hints-infrastructure/#policy-controlled-client-hints-features)
⬇️ Response from `blog.site` delegating the hint
```text
Accept-CH: Sec-CH-UA-Model
Permissions-Policy: ch-ua-model=(self "https://cdn.site")
```
⬆️ Request to subresources on `cdn.site` include the delegated hint
```text
Sec-CH-UA-Model: "Pixel 5"
```
You can specify multiple hints for multiple origins, and not just from the `ch-ua` range:
⬇️ Response from `blog.site` delegating multiple hints to multiple origins
```text
Accept-CH: Sec-CH-UA-Model, DPR
Permissions-Policy: ch-ua-model=(self "https://cdn.site"),
ch-dpr=(self "https://cdn.site" "https://img.site")
```
> [!TIP]
> **Tip:** You don't need to include each delegated hint in `Accept-CH`, but you do need to include `self` for each hint, even if you're not using it at the top level.
### Delegate hints to iframes
Cross-origin iframes work in a similar way to cross-origin resources, but you
specify the hints you would like to delegate in the `allow` attribute.
⬇️ Response from `blog.site`
```text
Accept-CH: Sec-CH-UA-Model
```
↪️ HTML for `blog.site`
```html
```
⬆️ Request to `widget.site`
```text
Sec-CH-UA-Model: "Pixel 5"
```
The `allow` attribute in the iframe will override any `Accept-CH` header that
`widget.site` may send itself, so make sure you've specified everything the
iframe'd site will need.
### Dynamic server-side hints
If you have specific parts of the user journey where you need a larger selection
of hints than across the rest of the site, you may choose to request those hints
on demand rather than statically across the entire site. This is more complex to
manage, but if you already set different headers on a per route basis it may be
feasible.
The important thing to remember here is that each instance of the `Accept-CH`
header will effectively overwrite the existing set. So, if you are dynamically
setting the header then each page must request the full set of hints required.
For example, you may have one section on your site where you want to provide
icons and controls that match the user's operating system. For this, you may
want to additionally pull in `Sec-CH-UA-Platform-Version` to serve appropriate
subresources.
⬇️ Response headers for `/blog`
```text
Accept-CH: Sec-CH-UA-Mobile, Sec-CH-UA-Platform, Sec-CH-UA
```
⬇️ Response headers for `/app`
```text
Accept-CH: Sec-CH-UA-Mobile, Sec-CH-UA-Platform, Sec-CH-UA-Platform-Version, Sec-CH-UA
```
### Address server-side hints required on first request
There may be cases where you require more than the default set of hints on the
very first request, however this is likely to be rare so make sure you've
reviewed the reasoning.
The first request really means the very first top-level request for that origin
sent in that browsing session. The default set of hints includes the browser
name with major version, the platform, and the mobile indicator. So the question
to ask here is, do you require extended data on the initial page load?
> [!NOTE]
> **Note:** Consider using the [on-demand client-side JavaScript API strategy](https://web.dev/articles/migrate-to-ua-ch.md.txt#on-demand_client-side_javascript_api) to alter content within the page, instead of client-side.
For additional hints on the first request there are two options. First, you can
make use of the `Critical-CH` header. This takes the same format as `Accept-CH`
but tells the browser that it should immediately retry the request if the first
one was sent without the critical hint.
⬆️ Initial request
```text
[With default headers]
```
⬇️ Response headers
```text
Accept-CH: Sec-CH-UA-Model
Critical-CH: Sec-CH-UA-Model
```
🔃 Browser retries initial request with the extra header
```text
[With default headers + ...]
Sec-CH-UA-Model: Pixel 5
```
This incurs the overhead of the retry on the very first request, but the
implementation cost is relatively low. Send the extra header and the browser
will do the rest.
> [!TIP]
> **Tip:** Any `Critical-CH` values must be a subset of the values in `Accept-CH`. `Accept-CH` is all the values you would like for the page, `Critical-CH` is the subset of those values you **must** have to load the page properly.
For situations where you require really do require additional hints on the very
first page load, the [Client Hints Reliability
proposal](https://github.com/WICG/client-hints-infrastructure/blob/main/reliability.md#connection-level-settings)
is laying out a route to specify hints in the connection-level settings. This
makes use of the [Application-Layer Protocol
Settings(ALPS)](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-vvv-tls-alps) extension to TLS
1.3 to enable this early passing of hints on HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 connections. This
is still at a very early stage, but if you actively manage your own TLS and
connection settings then this is an ideal time to contribute.
### Legacy support
> [!WARNING]
> **Warning:** We have included the following solution as it completes the scope of migrating away from the User-Agent string. However, we do not recommend or support this solution. Your time is best spent performing the migration.
You may have legacy or third-party code on your site that depends on
`navigator.userAgent`, including portions of the user-agent string that will be
reduced. You should plan to move to the equivalent
`navigator.userAgentData` calls, but there is an interim solution.
[UA-CH retrofill](https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/uach-retrofill) is a small
library that lets you overwrite `navigator.userAgent` with a new string
built from the requested `navigator.userAgentData` values.
For example, this code generates a user-agent string that additionally
includes the "model" hint:
```javascript
import { overrideUserAgentUsingClientHints } from './uach-retrofill.js';
overrideUserAgentUsingClientHints(['model'])
.then(() => { console.log(navigator.userAgent); });
```
The resulting string would show the `Pixel 5` model, but still shows the reduced
`92.0.0.0` as the `uaFullVersion` hint was not requested:
```text
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10.0; Pixel 5) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/92.0.0.0 Mobile Safari/537.36
```
## Further support
If these strategies don't address your use case, start a [Discussion in
privacy-sandbox-dev-support
repo](https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/privacy-sandbox-dev-support/discussions)
and we can explore your issue together.