As previously detailed in 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. In Android, we change the <deviceModel> token to “K” and change the <androidVersion> token to a static “10” string., and will no longer be updated. Additionally, the values for navigator.platform is frozen to "Linux armv81" on Android platform (see https://www.chromium.org/updates/ua-reduction/#reduced-navigatorplatform-values-for-all-versions). This is phase 6 of the User-Agent reduction plan as described in https://blog.chromium.org/2021/09/user-agent-reduction-origin-trial-and-dates.html. For use cases requiring high-entropy OS version, CPU architecture, bitness, developers are encouraged to request that via the User Agent Client Hints API, in particular the Sec-CH-UA-Platform, Sec-CH-UA-Platform-Version, Sec-CH-UA-Arch, and Sec-CH-UA-Bitness client hints.
As noted in the User Agent Client Hints explainer, the User Agent string presents challenges for two reasons. Firstly, it passively exposes quite a lot of information about the browser for every HTTP request that may be used for fingerprinting. Secondly, it has grown in length and complexity over the years and encourages error-prone string parsing. We believe the User Agent Client Hints API solves both of these problems in a more developer- and user-friendly manner.