LGTM3*. Thank you for your continued careful and cautious approach to this breaking change, I'm excited to see it nearing the final goal. I expect that we'll see an increase in client hints usage (eg. for important anti-fraud use cases) as a result of this change. Given all the advance warning and support you've provided the ecosystem on moving to client hints, I don't personally see that anything would be gained by delaying any further.
*slightlyoff@ LGTM2'd in chromestatus, I haven't seen the e-mail yet but I presume it's coming. On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 11:53 AM Chris Harrelson <chris...@chromium.org> wrote: > LGTM1 > > On Tue, Jan 17, 2023 at 8:02 AM Victor Tan <victor...@chromium.org> wrote: > >> Contact emails >> >> victor...@chromium.org, miketa...@chromium.org >> >> Explainer >> >> >> https://github.com/WICG/ua-client-hints#explainer-reducing-user-agent-granularity >> >> Specification >> >> https://www.chromium.org/updates/ua-reduction is the closest thing that >> specifies Chrome’s UA Reduction plans today. As these changes land in >> Chromium and ship to 100% stable, the Compat Standard >> <https://compat.spec.whatwg.org/> will be updated in the UA String >> section <https://compat.spec.whatwg.org/#ua-string-pattern-chrome>, like >> we did for the Phase 4 and plan to do for Phase 5 changes. >> >> Summary >> >> As previously detailed on the Chromium Blog >> <https://blog.chromium.org/2021/09/user-agent-reduction-origin-trial-and-dates.html>, >> we intend to proceed with Phase 6 of the User-Agent Reduction plan >> <https://www.chromium.org/updates/ua-reduction/#sample-ua-strings-phase-6>. >> In Phase 6, we change the deviceModel token to “K” and change the >> androidVersion token to a static “10” string in Android User-Agent >> string. The navigator.platform will be a “Linux armv81” constant on the >> Android platform. >> >> Blink component >> >> Blink>Network>ClientHints >> >> TAG review >> >> https://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/640 >> >> TAG review status >> >> Closed satisfied with concerns. >> >> Risks >> Interoperability and Compatibility >> >> Any time you modify the User-Agent string there is a risk of breaking >> existing patterns, like some content somewhere depending on the previous >> format. >> >> We do not expect interoperability risks, as each browser sends its own >> User-Agent string format. However there is a risk that - on the Android >> platform - content may rely on User-Agents to parse deviceModel and >> androidVersion information. To mitigate the risk of this change, we intend >> to slowly roll out the format via Finch on the Android platform and observe >> health metrics and bug reports. See timeline below on our slow roll out >> plan. This gives us the option to roll this back for the Android platform >> if major issues arise. >> >> Displaying a static androidVersion and a deviceModel token for Android >> clients will not create a problem syntactically. But the web can get pretty >> weird in ways we don't anticipate. For example, sites can rely on the >> deviceModel in the User-Agent string to determine whether the device is a >> mobile, laptop or desktop. Currently, we change the deviceModel to a static >> string, sites need to use client hints as the alternative to determine the >> right behavior. Hence the slow roll-out and incremental path towards >> User-Agent Reduction. >> >> Here is our proposed rollout plan in Chrome Stable channel >> (Canary/Dev/Beta has been enabled 50%), with the understanding that if we >> discover concerning breakage or regressions via health metrics or bug >> reports we will pause the rollout or roll back the feature entirely (and >> update this thread if so): >> >> Stage >> >> Duration >> >> Date >> >> Stable 1% (M110+) >> >> M110 stable release is shipping to 100% (a best guess) >> >> Feb 14, 2023 >> >> Stable 10% (M110/M111) >> >> ~4 weeks after previous stage >> >> Mar 14, 2023 >> >> Stable 50% >> >> (M110/M111) >> >> ~2 weeks >> >> Mar 28, 2023 >> >> TOT Default (M114) >> >> ~2 weeks after previous stage >> >> Apr 11, 2023 >> >> Stable 100% (M110=>M114) >> >> ~ Same business day as previous stage >> >> Apr 11, 2023 >> >> Web stakeholders can still test with the user agent reduction >> deprecation origin trial >> <https://developer.chrome.com/origintrials/#/view_trial/2608710084154359809> >> until M113 (late May) if they need more time to adapt to the coming >> changes. The UA-RD OT allows web stakeholders to request the legacy >> user-agent string values (i.e. non-reduced values). >> >> Gecko: Shipped/Shipping. Firefox has frozen (or capped) much of their UA >> string already. >> >> WebKit: Shipped/Shipping. Safari has already frozen everything in their >> desktop UA string except for Safari and WebKit versions. Also, UA reduction >> phase 6 will only apply to the Android platform. >> >> Web developers: Mixed signals. Various channels have different >> reactions. It’s similar for the UA reduction phase 4 and phase 5. >> >> >> Debuggability >> >> No special DevTools support needed. >> >> Will this feature be supported on all six Blink platforms (Windows, Mac, >> Linux, Chrome OS, Android, and Android WebView)? >> >> No (Only for Android) >> >> Is this feature fully tested by web-platform-tests >> <https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/master/docs/testing/web_platform_tests.md> >> ? >> >> No, because User-Agents vary across browsers. >> >> Flag name >> >> #reduce-user-agent-android-version-device-model >> >> Notes: The existing flag #reduce-user-agent will provide the same format >> User-Agent string on the Android platform since this is the last phase for >> User-Agent reduction. >> >> Tracking bug >> >> https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1394819 >> >> Launch bug >> >> https://launch.corp.google.com/launch/4225291 >> >> Link to entry on the Chrome Platform Status >> >> https://chromestatus.com/feature/5177681979637760 >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "blink-dev" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to blink-dev+unsubscr...@chromium.org. >> To view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/CAJh4P7F7jKA4985JjpdzTr_XDkP%3DfS2pKaoBMStad9%3DujUzjuw%40mail.gmail.com >> <https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/CAJh4P7F7jKA4985JjpdzTr_XDkP%3DfS2pKaoBMStad9%3DujUzjuw%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >> . >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "blink-dev" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to blink-dev+unsubscr...@chromium.org. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/CAOMQ%2Bw-zjUXrC9m2mfPQXDrQUnqBbUGUSsrZUhVJDPxcFD%3DZhA%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/CAOMQ%2Bw-zjUXrC9m2mfPQXDrQUnqBbUGUSsrZUhVJDPxcFD%3DZhA%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "blink-dev" group. 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