Shouldn't com.apple.WebKit.Networking be recognised as bot?

[Marcdj-02]

I saw the following request come through when visiting http://localhost:3000/login:
GET http://localhost:3000/apple-touch-icon.png with the userAgent: com.apple.WebKit.Networking/xxx.x.xx.xx.x Network/xxxx.x.xx.xxx.x macOS/15.0.

It seems to me this request is a background process, I am not sure if this userAgent pattern is only used for background processes, if so shouldn't it be added to the bot patterns?

Thanks in advance for the replies!

[omrilotan]

Thank you. I can see your point and I agree with the logic. I'm not 100% sure I can define background processes related to user sessions as "bot", but I can see how this can be considered as an automated request.
I will try finding data to back it up, and then release an update to the recognition pattern.

[Marcdj-02]

Thanks for your quick reply! I am a aware this might be a weird case, but worth taking a look at IMO

[omrilotan]

Looks like it's quite the opposite. I wouldn't call this process automated. It's just a background process for actual user apps. What do you think, @Marcdj-02 ?

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/browserenginekit/networkingextension

An interface for configuring a networking helper extension process that will carry out networking operations on behalf of the browser app

[Marcdj-02]

If I read this correctly, this is used for browser extensions. Normally, as far as I know, extension like Chrome use the actual user-agent of the browser it is ran in, along with the cookies of the user.

Unfortunately, I am not able to reproduce this, yet I am quite certain the user's cookies weren't sent along, which makes sense if the user-agent is different. This indicated that is a 'different' process and therefore I'd see it as an automated process. If this makes it a bot or not is quite tricky.

For your context, I am using isbot for tracking unauthenticated visitors, whilst excluding bots, and such a request would increase the visitors, which it shouldn't. But it sound more like a me-problem, than that it is missing from the bot quantification.

Thanks anyways!

[omrilotan]

You're right com.apple.WebKit.Networking is not used by browser extensions but the definition is very similar.

It makes sense that the users' cookies will not be included in these requests.

Still doesn't make it a bot request necessarily, and definitely not a self-identifying bot.

I am going to close this issue but thank you for your attention.