Determine a user's timezone

Question

Is there a standard way for a web server to be able to determine a user\'s timezone within a web page?

Perhaps from an HTTP header or part of the user-agent

Answer 1

Here is a more complete way.

1. Get the timezone offset for the user
2. Test some days on daylight saving boundaries to determine if they are in a zone that uses daylight saving.

An excerpt is below:

function TimezoneDetect(){
    var dtDate = new Date('1/1/' + (new Date()).getUTCFullYear());
    var intOffset = 10000; //set initial offset high so it is adjusted on the first attempt
    var intMonth;
    var intHoursUtc;
    var intHours;
    var intDaysMultiplyBy;

    // Go through each month to find the lowest offset to account for DST
    for (intMonth=0;intMonth < 12;intMonth++){
        //go to the next month
        dtDate.setUTCMonth(dtDate.getUTCMonth() + 1);

        // To ignore daylight saving time look for the lowest offset.
        // Since, during DST, the clock moves forward, it'll be a bigger number.
        if (intOffset > (dtDate.getTimezoneOffset() * (-1))){
            intOffset = (dtDate.getTimezoneOffset() * (-1));
        }
    }

    return intOffset;
}

Getting TZ and DST from JS (via Way Back Machine)