Death of the User Agent
Once upon a time, web browsers were known as User Agents. The idea presumably being that they are what enables the user to interact with the web. The term “browser” never sat right with me. It turns active agency into passive browsing. Might as well rename the smartphone to scroller.
These days, the only place where the term User Agent remains is in the HTTP Header User-Agent. Which is included with every single HTTP request you make to every single website out there. It looks like this:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:125.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/125.0
This used to be potentially helpful, it could help websites decide which features were supported on your end, and maybe provide a workaround if something wasn’t supported. This used to be a very common occurrence, back when there were more than one and a half browsers on the planet. Internet Explorer in particular (or Exploder, as it was not-so-affectionally called) was pretty terrible at respecting web standards, and was years behind in terms of features. The User-Agent header could be used to warn users that their crummy browser would result in a sub-par experience on a website. Or, if you’re me, it could be used to detect older versions of Internet Exploder, and insert a bit of nasty Javascript which crashed the browser and the entire desktop environment. Sorry, not sorry.
But that’s not what this post is about. No. It’s about User Agency on the web, and how modern browsers are stealing our agency. A browser no longer represents the interests of its users. Instead, it panders to an unholy trinity of Big Tech, Advertisers, and Middle Management.
Big Tech
There are really only two browsers left. Google’s Chrome, and Mozilla’s Firefox. Everything else is either a derivative of these two (e.g. Edge, Safari), is completely insignificant in terms of market share (e.g. Brave, Vivaldi), or is highly specialised for a specific audience (e.g. Lynx). Google is obviously the Big Bad Wolf. But Mozilla is something of a baby wolf in sheep’s clothing, they get most of their money from Google, and they’ve proven to be a sellout at every turn.
Advertisers
Google is an oversized ad-peddler. It’s their core business. It’s in their best financial interest to make sure browsers are optimized for gathering information and displaying ads. They do their darnedest to make sure your eyeballs are glued to the shitty ads they throw your way. They go out of their way to block adblockers. They’ve managed to put more ads on YouTube videos than cable ever had. Etc. It’s not just Google, of course, the entire web runs on ads. Ads, which more often than not rely on as much personal information as their brokers are able to glean from you.
Middle Management
Every non-tiny company with a website has a bunch of Middle Managers. You know the kind: all ego, no brain. These are the folks who I imagine are responsible for half the shit that’s happening on modern websites. “No, you’re not allowed to paste your email address in this form”, “No, this form WON’T remember your username even if you want it to”, “Yes, we will throw hundreds of cookies at you”. Any sensible web developer would say “fuck off” to all of those things. But browser makers went along. Probably because their own Middle Manglement convinced them that these were good ideas.
Bring back the User Agent
I’d like to see real User Agents again. Which operate in my best interests, for my convenience. Instead of appeasing that unholy trinity of evil cunts. I can decide when I want to run an adblocker. When I do or don’t want your damned cookies. When I want to zoom in. When I want to save a picture. Or right click. Or paste text. Or remember form fields. Whether or not I want to send a Refer(r)er header. These are not decisions that arbitrary websites should make. And they’re certainly not decisions Google or Mozilla should make for me.
Fuck browsers. Hail User Agents.
— Elric