Background: I’m using Ungoogled Chromium, which I do not keep up to date because non-Debian packages are a big hassle to maintain. I expect this risk to be mine alone.
Since websites are secretive¹ about their reasons for blocking, it has been quite painful (as a Tor user) that many services are not blocking Tor, but in fact blocking old versions of Chrome. WTF? Why does a website block old Chrome versions? My gut thought was the website wants to nanny users, to try to force users to secure themselves (“for the user’s own protection”), because surely a user with old chrome does not realistically threaten the server’s security.
The answer: it turns out that AI bots are strangely using old Chrome versions for a user-agent header. So webmasters are reacting by blocking old versions of Chrome. What I don’t understand is why devs of AI bots would try to masquerade as old Chrome versions.
And to a lesser extent I wonder why webmasters are reckless enough to take this collective-punishment-is-ok stance. It would be like a store owner banning customers wearing blue hats from their shop because some shoplifters were caught wearing blue hats.
¹ Exceptionally, codeberg.org actually respects our dignity enough to preduce an error message that says they are blocking old chrome. But they are the exception.
What that database would tell you is that you should use the latest closest-to-accurate UA for your browser and OS.
But you seem to want to soapbox and relish in your self-inflicted struggles here, so I’ll leave you to play with your tin foil in peace.
If you actually mean the tool that uses the database, sure, but whatever the “closest” is requires a db as input to derive what that would be.
Although consumers should often be blamed for enshitification, this is not one of those cases. If an anti-enshitification tool would state: “this service judges you by your UA”, then I would protest accordingly so as to not be part of the problem of rewarding enshitification.