Google Docs displays "unsupported browser" for Chromium Edge

[harlan4096]

Users of the Chromium-based Edge browser that access Google Docs in the browser receive an "unsupported browser" notification when they open any document using the service.

Microsoft is working on a new browser that is based on Chromium; the same core that Google Chrome uses. The browser is available as a development preview at the time but it supports more or less the same feature set as Google Chrome.

Google Docs displays a "The version of the browser you are using is no longer supported. Please upgrade to a supported browser" notification when the service is accessed using Microsoft Edge.

The "supported browser" links opens a help page on the Google website that lists Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge as supported.

Why then the message? It appears that Google implemented user-agent sniffing on Google Docs and that the new Chromium-based Edge browser is not found on that list. If you change the user-agent, the error goes away automatically.

Microsoft implemented automatic user-agent switching in the Edge browser, but it does not help in this case because there is no exception for Google Docs implemented currently.

The same mistake happened a couple of days ago with Google Meet, another Google service that suddenly stopped working for Microsoft Edge users.

Google released a statement after the incident became known that the issue was caused by Edge using a new user-agent string, and that the new string was not on the whitelist that the service uses. Google would add Edge's user-agent to the whitelist to make sure that Edge users could use the service properly.

Could it be that the Google Docs incident is just another missing user-agent error?

Even if it is, the number of incidents like this is striking. Microsoft is not the only company that is on the receiving end; Mozilla had to battle with Google time and time again to make sure that Google services would support Firefox properly.

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