// Bots in browsers
The painted mark for Unnamed programs using a browser name
Placeholder: mark still to be painted

Unnamed programs using a browser name

Visits that say they come from an ordinary web browser, like Chrome or Safari, but don't behave like one: they leave out things every browser sends, or open pages faster than anyone could read them. They are most likely programs pretending to be browsers so that sites treat them like people, for example scrapers, price checkers, or crawlers that would rather not be named. Now and then it may be an unusual or old browser. Since 30 October 2026 the key on The Bot Collector says whose networks they came from: a cloud company they rent servers from, a company running its own network, or a home internet provider, which can mean a home connection carrying a program's traffic, with or without its owner knowing.

Why? Many sites turn away programs that admit to being programs, so dressing up as a browser gets through. Renting servers in the cloud is cheap and each one comes with a fresh address; borrowing someone’s home connection costs more, but is the hardest to tell from a person. In August 2025 Cloudflare reported that an AI search company, once its named crawlers were blocked, carried on with an unnamed one that said it was Chrome on a Mac and kept changing its addresses (report).