Audit usage of navigator userAgent, appVersion, and platform

[jessegreenberg]

Putting in phet-core because that is where platorm.js lives, but there are usages of these in a few places in the project.

@Nancy-Salpepi noticed this warning while testing involving a reduction in the amount of information available in the User Agent string.

Here is information from Chrome about the changes and timeline: https://blog.chromium.org/2021/05/update-on-user-agent-string-reduction.html

[jessegreenberg]

Just noting the parts from https://blog.chromium.org/2021/05/update-on-user-agent-string-reduction.html that I found important:

Regarding timeline:

no User-Agent string changes will be coming to the stable channel of Chrome in 2021.

Regarding compatibility:

Once this is complete, you will still be able to reliably get the browser major version, platform name, and distinguish between desktop and mobile (or tablet), solely from the User-Agent string. For more advanced use cases, you should migrate to the User Agent Client Hints API.

Our plan was designed with backwards compatibility in mind, and while any changes to the User Agent string need to be managed carefully, we expect minimal friction for developers as we roll this out (i.e., existing parsers should continue to operate as expected).

If your site, service, library or application relies on certain bits of information being present in the User Agent string such as Chrome minor version, OS version number, or Android device model, you will need to begin the migration to use the User Agent Client Hints API instead.

If you don’t require any of these, then no changes are required and things should continue to operate as they have to date.

I don't see anything in platform.js about Chrome version number, OS version number, or Android device model. So we may be OK with this change. But adding to developer meeting to review with the team and check if anything should be done.

[samreid]

I noted that there are numerous usages of navigator.userAgent outside of platform.js as well. A few usages of navigator.platform elsewhere.

[jessegreenberg]

Discussed 8/19/21 at developer meeting:

It doesn't seem like we are using the features of the user agent strings that are being changed. According to https://blog.chromium.org/2021/05/update-on-user-agent-string-reduction.html there will be a trail version that we can test before the change goes live. When that is ready we can do some testing to make sure everything is still running OK.

@jonathanolson mentioned there might be some impacts on yotta but there likely isn't much we can do about it.

We added a reminder to the dev meeting doc to see if a Trail version of chrome with this change is ready yet since there aren't any dates listed in https://blog.chromium.org/2021/05/update-on-user-agent-string-reduction.html for when that will happen.

[zepumph]

Bringing back up to dev meeting.

[jessegreenberg]

According to https://blog.chromium.org/2021/09/user-agent-reduction-origin-trial-and-dates.html and https://developer.chrome.com/blog/user-agent-reduction-origin-trial/

We can register for a trail version with user agent reduction here: https://developer.chrome.com/origintrials/#/view_trial/-7123568710593282047

We have until April 19th 2022 to register.

[zepumph]

We We feel like this is worthy of discussion, but want to wait for @jonathanolson to be present. Before next week we would like to register in the link above, thanks for doing that @jessegreenberg.

MK sees that chrome's message recommends navigator.userAgentData, but @samreid mentioned that it is not broadly supported by browsers.

We will discuss next week!

[jessegreenberg]

We do NOT want to register PhET for a trail, apparently that impacts all users of our origin!

When Chrome offers an origin trial for a feature, you can register for the trial to enable the feature for all users on your origin, without requiring them to toggle any flags or switch to an alternative build of Chrome (though they may need to upgrade).

But I think we can register localhost and use that to test locally.

[zepumph]

High priority to make sure we get to this next week.

[jessegreenberg]

So I thought by "registering" we would be able to download a trial version of Chrome. But you actually have to enable this feature with a response header from your own server. So here are the steps I took to be able to test this. I had to modify the source of http-server. If you have access to a config file with something like apache maybe you will have an easier time.

• Go to https://developer.chrome.com/origintrials/#/view_trial/-7123568710593282047 and register for a trial at http://localhost:8080
• Find http-server.js where you have http-server installed. For me it was at *../AppData/Roaming/npm/node_modules/http-server/lib/
• Add these lines to modify the headers (from https://developer.chrome.com/blog/user-agent-reduction-origin-trial/#enroll-top-level)

  // For Chrome testing
  this.headers['Origin-Trial'] = '{{THE_KEY_YOU_RECEIVED_FROM_STEP_1}}';
  this.headers['Accept-CH'] = 'Sec-CH-UA-Reduced';
  this.headers['Critical-CH'] = 'Sec-CH-UA-Reduced';

• Start the http-server.
• You should be able to see the origin trial active in the "Application" tab of the Chrome dev tools in the "Frames" section
  

And I can see a difference in the user agent string, such as the minor version of Chrome being 0.0.0

Here it is without the headers:

[jessegreenberg]

I don't think we have anything to worry about here for sims. Here is the best list I found with examples about what is changing: https://www.chromium.org/updates/ua-reduction/#sample-ua-strings-phase-4

To summarize:

• The chrome minor version number in the user agent string is being replaced by '0.0.0' always.
• The Windows version will always be reported as '10.0' and never change.
• The "device model" for mobile devices will always be reported as 'K', and never change. The Android version will always be reported as '10.0' and never change.
• navigator.platform is being reduced to https://www.chromium.org/updates/ua-reduction/#reduced-navigatorplatform-values-for-all-versions
• navigator.appVersoin will be an alias for navigator.userAgent.

Assigning to @jonathanolson to confirm if you agree and also to consider if there are implications for yotta.

[jonathanolson]

No implications for yotta (we don't use the data that was reduced). I've scanned everything and I agree that this should not affect sims. It looks like our normal detections should work.

[jessegreenberg]

Comments during status meeting today confirmed that this is safe for us, we can close.