Browser detection in JavaScript? [duplicate]

Answer 1

Sadly, IE11 no longer has MSIE in its navigator.userAgent:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/7.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; OfficeLiveConnector.1.5; OfficeLivePatch.1.3; .NET4.0C; BRI/2; BOIE9;ENUS; rv:11.0) like Gecko

As to why you want to know which browser you're using, it's because every browser has its own set of bugs, and you end up implementing browser and version specific workarounds, or tell the user to use a different browser!

Answer 2

All the information about web browser is contained in navigator object. The name and version are there.

var appname = window.navigator.appName;

Source: javascript browser detection

Answer 3

Here's how to detect browsers in 2016, including Microsoft Edge, Safari 10 and detection of Blink:

// Opera 8.0+ (UA detection to detect Blink/v8-powered Opera)
isOpera = !!window.opera || navigator.userAgent.indexOf(' OPR/') >= 0;
// Firefox 1.0+
isFirefox = typeof InstallTrigger !== 'undefined';
// Safari 3.0+
isSafari = /constructor/i.test(window.HTMLElement) || (function (p) { return p.toString() === "[object SafariRemoteNotification]"; })(!window['safari'] || safari.pushNotification);
// Internet Explorer 6-11
isIE = /*@cc_on!@*/false || !!document.documentMode;
// Edge 20+
isEdge = !isIE && !!window.StyleMedia;
// Chrome 1+
isChrome = !!window.chrome && !!window.chrome.webstore;
// Blink engine detection
isBlink = (isChrome || isOpera) && !!window.CSS;

The beauty of this approach is that it relies on browser engine properties, so it covers even derivative browsers, such as Yandex or Vivaldi, which are practically compatible with the major browsers whose engines they use. The exception is Opera, which relies on user agent sniffing, but today (i.e. ver. 15 and up) even Opera is itself only a shell for Blink.

Answer 4

Here is how I do custom CSS for Internet Explorer:

In my JavaScript file:

function isIE () {
      var myNav = navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase();
      return (myNav.indexOf('msie') != -1) ? parseInt(myNav.split('msie')[1]) : false;
}

jQuery(document).ready(function(){
    if(var_isIE){
            if(var_isIE == 10){
                jQuery("html").addClass("ie10");
            }
            if(var_isIE == 8){
                jQuery("html").addClass("ie8");
                // you can also call here some function to disable things that 
                //are not supported in IE, or override browser default styles.
            }
        }
    });

And then in my CSS file, y define each different style:

.ie10 .some-class span{
    .......
}
.ie8 .some-class span{
    .......
}

Answer 5

If you want a function that returns the browser as well as the version, here is an improvement from the original answer:

navigator.browserInfo = 
(
    function()
    {
        var browser = '';
        var version = '';
        var idString = '';

        var ua = navigator.userAgent;
        var tem = [];
        var M = ua.match(/(opera|chrome|safari|firefox|msie|trident(?=\/))\/?\s*(\d+)/i);

        //IE will be identified as 'Trident' and a different version number. The name must be corrected to 'Internet Explorer' and the correct version identified.
        //ie correction
        if(/trident/i.test(M[1]))
        {
            tem = /\brv[ :]+(\d+.?\d*)/g.exec(ua) || [];
            browser = 'Internet Explorer';
            version = tem[1];
        }

        //firefox
        else if(/firefox/i.test(M[1]))
        {
            tem = /\brv[ :]+(\d+.?\d*)/g.exec(ua) || [];
            browser = 'Firefox';
            version = tem[1];
        }

        //safari
        else if(/safari/i.test(M[1]))
        {
            tem = ua.match(/\bVersion\/(\d+.?\d*\s*\w+)/);
            browser = 'Safari';
            version = tem[1];
        }

        //If 'Chrome' is found, it may be another browser. 
        else if(M[1] === 'Chrome')
        {
            //opera
            var temOpr = ua.match(/\b(OPR)\/(\d+.?\d*.?\d*.?\d*)/);
            //edge
            var temEdge = ua.match(/\b(Edge)\/(\d+.?\d*)/);
            //chrome
            var temChrome = ua.match(/\b(Chrome)\/(\d+.?\d*.?\d*.?\d*)/);

            //a genuine 'Chrome' reading will result from ONLY temChrome not being null.
            var genuineChrome = temOpr == null && temEdge == null && temChrome != null;

            if(temOpr != null)
            {
                browser = temOpr[1].replace('OPR', 'Opera');
                version = temOpr[2];
            }

            if(temEdge != null)
            {
                browser = temEdge[1];
                version = temEdge[2];
            }

            if(genuineChrome)
            {
                browser = temChrome[1];
                version = temChrome[2];
            }
        }
        //There will be some odd balls, so if you wish to support those browsers, add functionality to display those browsers as well.

        if(browser == '' || version == '')
        {
            idString = 'We couldn\'t find your browser, but you can still use the site';
        }
        else
        {
            idString = browser + ' version ' + version;
        }

        alert('Your browser is ' + idString);

        //store the type of browser locally
        if(typeof(Storage) !== "undefined")
        {
            //Store
            localStorage.setItem('browser', browser);
            localStorage.setItem('version', version);
        } 
        else
        {
            alert('local storage not available');
        }
    }
)();

With this, it also stores the result locally, so this check is not necessary to run every time.

Answer 6

With jQuery:

$.browser

gives you somthing like:

Object {chrome: true, version: "26.0.1410.63", webkit: true}