Browser detection versus feature detection

Question

I am going to play a devil\'s advocate for a moment. I have been always wondering why browser detection (as opposed to feature detection) is considered to be a flat out as a

Answer 1

The ideal solution would be to have a combination of both feature and browser detection. The former falls down because of the points you mentioned and the latter because sometimes browsers publish false information to "make things work" just so.

Mozilla has a great Browser Detection Primer that might be helpful to you as well.

From wikipedia "At various points in its history, use of the Web has been dominated by one browser to the extent that many websites are designed to work only with that particular browser, rather than according to standards from bodies such as the W3C and IETF. Such sites often include "browser sniffing" code, which alters the information sent out depending on the User-Agent string received. This can mean that less popular browsers are not sent complex content, even though they might be able to deal with it correctly, or in extreme cases refused all content. Thus various browsers "cloak" or "spoof" this string, in order to identify themselves as something else to such detection code; often, the browser's real identity is then included later in the string."