Detect Chromium-Based Browsers from User-Agent
Identify Chromium-based browsers (Edge, Opera, Brave, Vivaldi) from User-Agent strings. Learn the unique tokens each browser adds to the base Chrome UA.
Detailed Explanation
Identifying Chromium-Based Browsers
Chromium is the open-source browser engine that powers Chrome and many other browsers. Each Chromium-based browser adds its own token to the base Chrome UA string.
The Chromium Family
All Chromium browsers share this base pattern:
Mozilla/5.0 (PLATFORM) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/VERSION Safari/537.36
Each browser appends its own identifier:
| Browser | Token | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Chrome | (none extra) | Chrome/120.0.0.0 |
| Edge | Edg/120.0.0.0 |
Abbreviated "Edg" |
| Opera | OPR/105.0.0.0 |
"OPR" not "Opera" |
| Brave | Brave/120 |
Added in recent versions |
| Vivaldi | Vivaldi/6.5 |
Includes full version |
| Samsung Internet | SamsungBrowser/23.0 |
Full name token |
| Yandex | YaBrowser/24.1 |
"Ya" prefix |
| UC Browser | UCBrowser/16.0 |
Full name |
Correct Parsing Order
The parsing order is critical because all these browsers include Chrome/ in their UA:
UCBrowser/→ UC BrowserSamsungBrowser/→ Samsung InternetBrave/→ BraveVivaldi/→ VivaldiOPR/orOpera/→ OperaEdg/orEdgA/orEdgiOS/→ Microsoft EdgeYaBrowser/→ Yandex BrowserChrome/→ Google Chrome (fallback)
If you check for Chrome/ first, every Chromium browser will be misidentified as Chrome.
Brave's Fingerprinting Protection
Brave is unique: in its aggressive privacy mode, it may remove its own Brave/ token from the UA string to prevent fingerprinting. In this case, Brave becomes indistinguishable from Chrome via UA string alone.
Implications for Web Development
All Chromium browsers share the same Blink rendering engine, so they have nearly identical CSS and JavaScript support. However, browsers like Brave (ad blocking), Opera (built-in VPN), and Samsung Internet (content extensions) may affect page rendering through their unique features.
Use Case
Analytics platforms need to accurately segment traffic across the Chromium browser family. A site may show 80% Chrome traffic, but deeper UA parsing reveals a significant portion is actually Edge, Brave, or Opera. This distinction matters for partnership decisions, browser extension development, and understanding true Chrome market share.