[removed] The best way to detect IE

Question

Reading this article I\'ve found a following piece of code:

if (\'v\'==\'\\v\') { // Note: IE listens on document
    document.attachEvent(\'onstorage\', onS         


        

Answer 1

To check if the browser is Internet Explorer, use feature detection to check for documentMode:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ie/cc196988%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

This code checks to see if the browser is Internet Explorer 8, 9, 10, or 11:

var docMode = document.documentMode,
    hasDocumentMode = (docMode !== undefined), 
    isIE8 = (docMode === 8),
    isIE9 = (docMode === 9),
    isIE10 = (docMode === 10),
    isIE11 = (docMode === 11),
    isMsEdge = window.navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Edge/") > -1;

// browser is IE
if(hasDocumentMode) {
     if(isIE11){
         // browser is IE11
     } else if(isIE10){
         // browser is IE10
     } else if(isIE9){
         // browser is IE9
     } else if(isIE8){
         // browser is IE8
     }
} else {
   // document.documentMode is deprecated in MS Edge
   if(isMsEdge){
         // browser is MS Edge
   }
}

Checking document.documentMode will only work in IE8 through IE11, since documentMode was added in IE8 and has been deprecated / removed in MS Edge.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff406036%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

I hope this helps!

UPDATE

If you really need to detect IE7, check for document.attachEvent:

var isIE7 = (document.attachEvent !== undefined);
if(isIE7) {
      // browser is IE7
}

IE7 returns a object, but if the browser is IE11 (for example), then this would come back as undefined, since IE11 does not have attachEvent.

UPDATE:

Added check for MS Edge. document.documentMode was deprecated in MS Edge. Due to the nature of MS Edge, you can check for Edge/ in the User Agent. Microsoft is making it difficult to use feature detection in MS Edge.