How can you detect the version of a browser?

Question

I\'ve been searching around for code that would let me detect if the user visiting the website has Firefox 3 or 4. All I have found is code to detect the type of browser but

Answer 1

I was looking for a solution for myself, since jQuery 1.9.1 and above have removed the $.browser functionality. I came up with this little function that works for me. It does need a global variable (I've called mine _browser) in order to check which browser it is. I've written a jsfiddle to illustrate how it can be used, of course it can be expanded for other browsers by just adding a test for _browser.foo, where foo is the name of the browser. I did just the popular ones.

detectBrowser()

_browser = {};

function detectBrowser() {
  var uagent = navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase(),
      match = '';

  _browser.chrome  = /webkit/.test(uagent)  && /chrome/.test(uagent)      &&
                     !/edge/.test(uagent);

  _browser.firefox = /mozilla/.test(uagent) && /firefox/.test(uagent);

  _browser.msie    = /msie/.test(uagent)    || /trident/.test(uagent)     ||
                     /edge/.test(uagent);

  _browser.safari  = /safari/.test(uagent)  && /applewebkit/.test(uagent) &&
                     !/chrome/.test(uagent);

  _browser.opr     = /mozilla/.test(uagent) && /applewebkit/.test(uagent) &&
                     /chrome/.test(uagent)  && /safari/.test(uagent)      &&
                     /opr/.test(uagent);

  _browser.version = '';

  for (x in _browser) {
    if (_browser[x]) {

      match = uagent.match(
                new RegExp("(" + (x === "msie" ? "msie|edge" : x) + ")( |\/)([0-9]+)")
              );

      if (match) {
        _browser.version = match[3];
      } else {
        match = uagent.match(new RegExp("rv:([0-9]+)"));
        _browser.version = match ? match[1] : "";
      }
      break;
    }
  }
  _browser.opera = _browser.opr;
  delete _browser.opr;
}

To check if the current browser is Opera you would do

if (_browser.opera) { // Opera specific code }

Edit Fixed the formatting, fixed the detection for IE11 and Opera/Chrome, changed to browserResult from result. Now the order of the _browser keys doesn't matter. Updated jsFiddle link.

2015/08/11 Edit Added new testcase for Internet Explorer 12 (EDGE), fixed a small regexp problem. Updated jsFiddle link.

Answer 2

var nVer = navigator.appVersion;
var nAgt = navigator.userAgent;
var browserName  = navigator.appName;
var fullVersion  = ''+parseFloat(navigator.appVersion);
var majorVersion = parseInt(navigator.appVersion,10);
var nameOffset,verOffset,ix;

// In Opera, the true version is after "Opera" or after "Version"

if ((verOffset=nAgt.indexOf("Opera"))!=-1) {
 browserName = "Opera";
 fullVersion = nAgt.substring(verOffset+6);
 if ((verOffset=nAgt.indexOf("Version"))!=-1)
   fullVersion = nAgt.substring(verOffset+8);
}
// In MSIE, the true version is after "MSIE" in userAgent

else if ((verOffset=nAgt.indexOf("MSIE"))!=-1) {
 browserName = "Microsoft Internet Explorer";
 fullVersion = nAgt.substring(verOffset+5);
}
// In Chrome, the true version is after "Chrome"

else if ((verOffset=nAgt.indexOf("Chrome"))!=-1) {
 browserName = "Chrome";
 fullVersion = nAgt.substring(verOffset+7);
}
// In Safari, the true version is after "Safari" or after "Version"

else if ((verOffset=nAgt.indexOf("Safari"))!=-1) {
 browserName = "Safari";
 fullVersion = nAgt.substring(verOffset+7);
 if ((verOffset=nAgt.indexOf("Version"))!=-1)
   fullVersion = nAgt.substring(verOffset+8);
}
// In Firefox, the true version is after "Firefox"

else if ((verOffset=nAgt.indexOf("Firefox"))!=-1) {
 browserName = "Firefox";
 fullVersion = nAgt.substring(verOffset+8);
}
// In most other browsers, "name/version" is at the end of userAgent

else if ( (nameOffset=nAgt.lastIndexOf(' ')+1) <
          (verOffset=nAgt.lastIndexOf('/')) )
{
 browserName = nAgt.substring(nameOffset,verOffset);
 fullVersion = nAgt.substring(verOffset+1);
 if (browserName.toLowerCase()==browserName.toUpperCase()) {
  browserName = navigator.appName;
 }
}

// trim the fullVersion string at semicolon/space if present

if ((ix=fullVersion.indexOf(";"))!=-1)
   fullVersion=fullVersion.substring(0,ix);
if ((ix=fullVersion.indexOf(" "))!=-1)
   fullVersion=fullVersion.substring(0,ix);

majorVersion = parseInt(''+fullVersion,10);
if (isNaN(majorVersion)) {
 fullVersion  = ''+parseFloat(navigator.appVersion);
 majorVersion = parseInt(navigator.appVersion,10);
}

document.write(''
 +'Browser name  = '+browserName+'<br>'
 +'Full version  = '+fullVersion+'<br>'
 +'Major version = '+majorVersion+'<br>'
 +'navigator.appName = '+navigator.appName+'<br>'
 +'navigator.userAgent = '+navigator.userAgent+'<br>'
)

See the demo here..http://jsfiddle.net/hw4jM/3/

Answer 3

function BrowserCheck()
{
    var N= navigator.appName, ua= navigator.userAgent, tem;
    var M= ua.match(/(opera|chrome|safari|firefox|msie|trident)\/?\s*(\.?\d+(\.\d+)*)/i);
    if(M && (tem= ua.match(/version\/([\.\d]+)/i))!= null) {M[2]=tem[1];}
    M= M? [M[1], M[2]]: [N, navigator.appVersion,'-?'];
    return M;
}

This will return an array, first element is the browser name, second element is the complete version number in string format.

Answer 4

In pure Javascript you can do a RegExp match on the navigator.userAgent to find the Firefox version:

var uMatch = navigator.userAgent.match(/Firefox\/(.*)$/),
    ffVersion;
if (uMatch && uMatch.length > 1) {
    ffVersion = uMatch[1];
}

ffVersion will be undefined if not a Firefox browser.

See working example →