server-side browser detection? node.js

Question

Most implementations i\'ve seen are for browser detection on the client side. I was just wondering if it was possible to do browser detection before sending any resources to

Answer 1

I threw this together using ua-parser-js. I'm sure it can be improved but it's functional.

Install the package:

sudo npm install ua-parser-js

In your routes file require UAParser:

var UAParser = require('ua-parser-js');

Do some stuff with it:

function ensureLatestBrowser(req, res, next) {
  var parser = new UAParser();
  var ua = req.headers['user-agent'];
  var browserName = parser.setUA(ua).getBrowser().name;
  var fullBrowserVersion = parser.setUA(ua).getBrowser().version;
  var browserVersion = fullBrowserVersion.split(".",1).toString();
  var browserVersionNumber = Number(browserVersion);

  if (browserName == 'IE' && browserVersion <= 9)
    res.redirect('/update/');
  else if (browserName == 'Firefox' && browserVersion <= 24)
    res.redirect('/update/');
  else if (browserName == 'Chrome' && browserVersion <= 29)
    res.redirect('/update/');
  else if (browserName == 'Canary' && browserVersion <= 32)
    res.redirect('/update/');
  else if (browserName == 'Safari' && browserVersion <= 5)
    res.redirect('/update/');
  else if (browserName == 'Opera' && browserVersion <= 16)
    res.redirect('/update/');
  else
    return next();
}

and then in your route just call:

app.all(/^(?!(\/update)).*$/, ensureLatestBrowser);

If you want to see what other information you can get with UAParser check out their demo page.