User agent detection is not very useful and often misleading
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(bugzilla.mozilla.org :: Bug Creation/Editing, enhancement)
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(Reporter: mstange, Unassigned)
Details
The browser's user agent is not an accurate description of the CPU architecture and OS version any more. For example, on macOS 14 aarch64 machines, the user agent says Intel 10.15.
This means the "Use my platform" button on the advanced bug filing page is not very accurate these days.
The same applies to the following checkbox on the guided form: "Include your browser's user agent string in the bug description. This can be helpful to developers working on your issue."
I don't have a specific proposal for what to do about this. Using the user agent might still be better than not using it. But the current practice feels a little dated.
We have to work of the information the browser presents to us.
For example my M2 Mac has the following UA string: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.15; rv:125.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/125.0
We'll likely see less specific information in user agent strings in the future, as browsers continue to combat fingerprinting.
Using the user agent might still be better than not using it.
I agree that right now this is accurate.
We have in the past explored granting special powers to bugzilla.mozilla.org so it could access parts of Firefox not usually exposed to web content, but the risks have always exceeded the gains.
Markus - how painful is incorrect browser info on bug reports causing?
I assume it has to be annoying when working on macOS specific issues, and I wonder if it's worth taking another attempt at making BMO privileged.
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Comment 2•2 months ago
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(In reply to :glob ✱ from comment #1)
Markus - how painful is incorrect browser info on bug reports causing?
It's not super painful but it is a recurring issue - for example, in bug 1912338, Brad thought we were dealing with a 10.15-specific bug.
I assume it has to be annoying when working on macOS specific issues, and I wonder if it's worth taking another attempt at making BMO privileged.
Having the correct macOS version and CPU architecture would be quite useful for macOS bugs, yes. I think it is worth adding something to Firefox that exposes this information to Bugzilla.
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