Latest User Agents

0.0.5 · active · verified Fri Apr 17

`latest-user-agents` is a Python library (version 0.0.5) that provides a simple function to retrieve a list of up-to-date user agent strings for major browsers and operating systems. It fetches these lists dynamically from an external website, caches them, and makes them available for use in web scraping or testing. The project is in maintenance, with no recent updates, but its core functionality remains stable.

Common errors

```
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'requests'
```
cause The `requests` library is used internally by `latest-user-agents` but is not declared as a dependency, so `pip` does not install it automatically.

fix Install `requests` manually: `pip install requests`.
```
IndexError: list index out of range (when trying to select a random user agent)
```
cause The `get_latest_user_agents()` function returned an empty list, likely because it failed to fetch user agents from its external source (e.g., `useragents.me` was down or blocked).

fix Check your network connection and the availability of `useragents.me`. Always verify that the returned list is not empty before attempting to access elements, e.g., `user_agents = get_latest_user_agents(); if user_agents: random_ua = random.choice(user_agents)`.

Warnings

gotcha The library implicitly depends on the `requests` package but does not declare it as a dependency in its `setup.py`. Without `requests` installed, the library will raise a `ModuleNotFoundError` when attempting to fetch user agents.
Fix: Ensure `requests` is installed alongside `latest-user-agents` by running `pip install latest-user-agents requests`.
gotcha User agent lists are fetched dynamically from `useragents.me`. If this external service is unavailable, changes its HTML structure, or blocks requests, the library will fail to retrieve new user agents, potentially returning an empty list or raising an error.
Fix: Verify the availability of `useragents.me` or consider a different user agent source if reliability is critical. The library does not provide built-in fallbacks and may return an empty list upon failure.
gotcha The library caches the fetched user agent list to avoid repeated network requests. However, the cache has a default expiry of 24 hours. For rapidly changing user agent needs, or if the source data updates more frequently, you might receive slightly stale data.
Fix: The library does not expose a way to manually clear the cache or adjust the expiry via its public API. If fresher data is required before the 24-hour expiry, you might need to restart your application or consider a workaround.

Install

pip install latest-user-agents requests Install with implicit dependency

Imports

get_latest_user_agents

from latest_user_agents import get_latest_user_agents

Quickstart

Fetches a list of current user agent strings and demonstrates selecting a random one. It includes a check for an empty list, which can occur if the external source is unavailable. Note that `requests` is implicitly required for internal fetching and explicitly for the example.

import random
from latest_user_agents import get_latest_user_agents

# Get a list of the latest user agents
user_agents = get_latest_user_agents()

if user_agents:
    # Select a random user agent from the list
    random_ua = random.choice(user_agents)

    print(f"Total user agents fetched: {len(user_agents)}")
    print(f"Random user agent: {random_ua}")

    # Example of using it with requests (requires 'requests' to be installed)
    # import requests
    # try:
    #     response = requests.get('http://httpbin.org/user-agent', headers={'User-Agent': random_ua})
    #     response.raise_for_status()
    #     print(f"Response from httpbin: {response.json()}")
    # except Exception as e:
    #     print(f"Error fetching from httpbin: {e}")
else:
    print("Could not fetch user agents. The list is empty.")

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