PHP mobile browser detection?

Question

I\'m in need of a way to detect mobile browsers server-side. I\'d like a way that requires me to do little to set up and little to maintain, yet still provide me with accura

Answer 1

Found this library a little while back:

http://code.google.com/p/mobileesp/

Has PHP, Java, JavaScript, and C# versions. I see it as a "lightweight" smartphone/tablet detection tool without dependencies and is regularly updated. I have mixed feelings about it though as some aspects of the code quality are a bit shaky.

If you need something even lighter-weight, the WP Super Cache plugin for WordPress contains some long regex strings you could probably swipe.

Browser sniffing based on user agent strings is always going to be flaky. I looked at WURFL and it is several MB compressed. Using that is overkill. A better approach is to detect the top devices in use on the website, design for those devices, and then call it a day.