This is an extremely complicated and almost completely useless browser sniffing library. Useless because you shouldn't use browser sniffing. So stop right now and go read something about feature detecting instead. I'm serious. Go away. You'll thank me later.

WhichBrowser/Server

This project sets up a server using WhichBrowser that exposes an API for browser detection that can be used by JavaScript in the browser. This project uses the WhichBrowser/Parser-PHP library for the actual useragent sniffing.

Also available:

• WhichBrowser/Parser-PHP
  A PHP version of WhichBrowser for use on the server

• WhichBrowser/Parser-JavaScript
  A JavaScript version of WhichBrowser for use with Node.js on the server

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Requirements

The server should be able to handle PHP (5.4 or later) and included is a .htaccess file that instructs the server to use detect.js as an alias for detect.php. This is not required, but if your server does not support .htaccess files you may want to find a way to make your server do the same. Alternatively you could use the detect.php directly.

How to install it

You can install WhichBrowser by using Composer - the standard package manager for PHP. The package is called whichbrowser/server. This sets up all dependancies like the PHP parser library. Go to an empty directory on your webserver, like the www or public_html directory of the domain where you want to install WhichBrowser.

composer create-project whichbrowser/server .

This will install the server in the current directory and install the whichbrowser/parser dependancy. You can easily update the parser library by running a simple command.

composer update

You should run this command as often as possible. You might even want to consider setting up a cron job for this purpose.

How to use it

The first step is to place a snippet of code on you webpage.

<script>
    (function(){var p=[],w=window,d=document,e=f=0;p.push('ua='+encodeURIComponent(navigator.userAgent));e|=w.ActiveXObject?1:0;e|=w.opera?2:0;e|=w.chrome?4:0;
    e|='getBoxObjectFor' in d || 'mozInnerScreenX' in w?8:0;e|=('WebKitCSSMatrix' in w||'WebKitPoint' in w||'webkitStorageInfo' in w||'webkitURL' in w)?16:0;
    e|=(e&16&&({}.toString).toString().indexOf("\n")===-1)?32:0;p.push('e='+e);f|='sandbox' in d.createElement('iframe')?1:0;f|='WebSocket' in w?2:0;
    f|=w.Worker?4:0;f|=w.applicationCache?8:0;f|=w.history && history.pushState?16:0;f|=d.documentElement.webkitRequestFullScreen?32:0;f|='FileReader' in w?64:0;
    p.push('f='+f);p.push('r='+Math.random().toString(36).substring(7));p.push('w='+screen.width);p.push('h='+screen.height);var s=d.createElement('script');
    s.src='//yourserver/whichbrowser/detect.js?' + p.join('&');d.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(s);})();
</script>

Please make sure you change the URL of the detect.js file to point it to your own server.

To get the exact snippet you need to include visit the directory in which you installed WhichBrowser in your browser.

The second step is to create a new WhichBrowser object. This object will contain all the information the library could find about your browser.

For example:

result = new WhichBrowser();

The variable result now contains an object which you can query for information. There are various ways to access the information.

First of all, you can treat the object as a string to get a human readable identification:

"You are using " + result
// You are using Chrome 27 on Mac OS X 10.8.4

If you need to, you can also explicitly typecast the object to a string

String(result)
result.toString()

Or you can turn the object into JSON:

JSON.stringify(result)
// { "browser": {"name":"Chrome","version":{"value":"27"...

Another possiblity is to query the object:

result.isType('desktop')
// true

result.isType('mobile', 'tablet', 'media')
// false

result.isBrowser('Maxthon', '<', '4.0.5')
// false

result.isOs('iOS', '>=', '5')
// false

result.isEngine('Blink')
// true

You can also access these properties directly:

result.browser
// Chrome 27

result.engine
// Blink

result.os
// Mac OS X 10.8.4

Or access parts of these properties directly:

result.browser.name
// Chrome

result.browser.name + ' ' + String(result.browser.version)
// Chrome 27

result.browser.version.major
// 27

result.browser.version.minor
// 0

result.browser.version.original
// 27.0.1453.110

result.engine.name
// Blink

Finally you can also query versions directly:

result.browser.version.is('>', 26)
// true

result.os.version.is('<', '10.7.4')
// false

API reference

The WhichBrowser object

After a new WhichBrowser object is created, it contains a number of properties and functions. All of these properties are guaranteed to be present.

Properties:

• browser an object that contains information about the browser itself
• engine an object that contains information about the rendering engine
• os an object that contains information about the operating system
• device an object that contains information about the device

Functions:

isType(type [,type [,type [,type]]]) If a single argument is used, the function returns true if the argument matches the type propery of device obejct. It can use multiple arguments in which case the function returns true if one of the arguments matches. If none of the arguments matches, it returns false

isBrowser(name [, comparison, version]) Is used to query the name and version property of the browser object. The funcion can contain a single argument to a simple comparison based on name, or three arguments to compare both name and version. The first argument always contains the name of the browser. The second arguments is a string that can container either <, <=, =, => or >. The third is an integer, float or string that contains the version. You can use versions like 10, 10.7 or '10.7.4'. For more information about how version comparisons are performed, please see the is() function of the Version object.

isEngine(name [, comparison, version]) Is used to query the name and version property of the engine object. This function works in exactly the same way as isBrowser.

isOs(name [, comparison, version]) Is used to query the name and version property of the os object. This function works in exactly the same way as isBrowser.

The browser object

The Browser object is used for the browser property of the main WhichBrowser object and contains a number of properties. If a property is not applicable in this situation it will be null.

Properties:

• name a string containing the name of the browser
• version a version object containing information about the version of the browser
• stock a boolean, true if the browser is the default browser of the operating system, false otherwise
• channel a string containing the distribution channel, ie. 'Nightly' or 'Next'.
• mode a string that can contain the operating mode of the browser, ie. 'proxy'.
• hidden a boolean that is true if the browser does not have a name and is the default of the operating system.

The engine object

The Engine object is used for the engine property of the main WhichBrowser object and contains a number of properties. If a property is not applicable in this situation it will be null.

Properties:

• name a string containing the name of the rendering engine
• version a version object containing information about the version of the rendering engine

The os object

The Os object is used for the os property of the main WhichBrowser object and contains a number of properties. If a property is not applicable in this situation it will be null.

Properties:

• name a string containing the name of the operating system
• version a version object containing information about the version of the operating system

The device object

The Device object is used for the device property of the main WhichBrowser object and contains a number of properties. If a property is not applicable in this situation it will be null.

Properties:

• type a string containing the type of the browser.
• identified a boolean that is true if the device has been positively identified.
• manufacturer a string containing the manufacturer of the device, ie. 'Apple' or 'Samsung'.
• model as string containing the model of the device, ie. 'iPhone' or 'Galaxy S4'.

The type property can contain any value from the following list:

• desktop
• mobile
• tablet
• gaming
• headset
• ereader
• media
• emulator
• television
• monitor
• camera
• signage
• whiteboard
• car
• pos
• bot

The version object

The Version object is used for the version property of the browser, engine and os object and contains a number of properties and functions. If a property is not applicable in this situation it will be null.

Properties:

• original a string containing the original version number.
• alias a string containing an alias for the version number, ie. 'XP' for Windows '5.1'.
• details an integer containing the number of digits of the version number that should be printed.
• major an integer containing the major version number.
• minor an integer containing the minor version number.
• type a string containing a type indicator, ie. 'beta' or 'alpha'.

Functions:

is(version) or is(comparison, version) Using this function it is easy to compare a version to another version. If you specify only one argument, this function will return if the versions are the same. You can also specify two arguments, in that case the first argument contains the comparison operator, such as <, <=, =, => or >. The second argument is the version you want to compare it to. You can use versions like 10, 10.7 or '10.7.4', but be aware that 10 is not the same as 10.0. For example if our OS version is 10.7.4:

result.os.version.is('10.7.4')
// true

result.os.version.is('10.7')
// true

result.os.version.is('10')
// true

result.os.version.is('10.0')
// false

result.os.version.is('>', '10')
// false

result.os.version.is('>', '10.7')
// false

result.os.version.is('>', '10.7.3')
// true

License

Copyright (c) 2015 Niels Leenheer

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.