Discover the benefits and details of 51Degrees Usage Sharing.
The digital landscape evolves at lightning speed. New smartphones are released, browsers update, smart devices hit the market, and bots become more sophisticated every day. For companies that rely on accurate device detection to optimize websites, personalize content, or measure user behavior, staying ahead of all this change can be a challenge.
This is where 51Degrees Usage Sharing comes in.
Usage Sharing is a feature built into the 51Degrees Pipeline that allows your deployment to contribute small, anonymized pieces of technical traffic data back to 51Degrees. In return, you get the benefit of consistently improving and highly accurate device and browser detection — without any extra effort on your end.
What is Usage Sharing?
Usage Sharing allows your system to send a small sample of anonymized request information from real web traffic to 51Degrees. This information helps our engine better understand what is happening across a wide range of environments, allowing us to detect:
- New devices
- New browsers and versions
- Bot patterns
- Platform changes
- Emerging trends in User-Agent data
In simple terms, the system learns from real traffic in the real world, and the benefit of that learning is shared with all users of the platform.
Why Usage Sharing exists
No central database can remain accurate forever without fresh data. New device identifiers and browser signatures appear constantly, and the only reliable way to track them is through real usage.
By pooling insights from customers who opt in, 51Degrees can:
- Rapidly identify previously unseen devices
- Improve the detection engine’s accuracy
- Reduce false matches
- Deliver more precise analytics
Your deployment becomes part of a global intelligence network — but without sharing anything personally sensitive.
What is shared during Usage Sharing?
Only technical data that helps improve detection is shared, including:
- Browser User-Agent strings
- The client IP address
- Host headers
- Certain Client Hint headers
These pieces of information help 51Degrees confirm the authenticity and behavior of web requests.
What is not shared during Usage Sharing?
Just as important is what does not get sent.
51Degrees is designed to avoid collecting personal information. It:
- Filters out sensitive data
- Ignores cookie values unless they are deliberately marked for sharing
- Does not automatically send query parameters
- Suppresses repeated identical traffic to avoid unnecessary transmission
This ensures the process remains compliant, secure, and focused only on improving detection - not collecting user data.
Built for high performance
Usage Sharing is also engineered to be lightweight and robust:
- Data is sent in batches to minimize overhead
- If something goes wrong, sharing quietly switches off without affecting detection
- It never blocks or delays the main service
In other words, your users will never feel it happening.
You stay in control
While Usage Sharing delivers long-term benefits, it’s always optional. You can:
- Turn it on or off
- Choose how much traffic to share (e.g., 10%)
- Specify which headers or evidence can be included
- Apply rules to skip sharing for specific conditions
For examples in your preferred language, see our Usage Sharing examples.
This gives you the flexibility to align the feature with your internal data policies, regional obligations, and comfort level.
What you get in return
By enabling Usage Sharing, you gain:
- The most accurate real-time device detection available
- Faster identification of new devices and technologies
- Higher quality analytics
- Consistent improvements over time—without manual maintenance
- You benefit from the knowledge of the entire user base, not just your own traffic
Final thoughts
In an environment where digital diversity is expanding every month, accurate device detection can’t stand still. 51Degrees Usage Sharing provides a smart, privacy-conscious way to keep detection continuously improving - without adding operational workload or complexity.
If your business relies on understanding your users’ devices, enabling Usage Sharing is a simple step that delivers meaningful long-term benefits.
Feel free to contact us if you need assistance configuring Usage Sharing or have any other questions. Together, we can make the digital world more accurate and efficient!
If you have any questions about how your data is used, please refer to our blog post Usage Sharing - how do we use your data?