Check if user is using IE

Question

I am calling a function like the one below by click on divs with a certain class.

Is there a way I can check when starting the function if a user is using Internet

Answer 1

Many answers here, and I'd like to add my input. IE 11 was being such an ass concerning flexbox (see all its issues and inconsistencies here) that I really needed an easy way to check if a user is using any IE browser (up to and including 11) but excluding Edge, because Edge is actually pretty nice.

Based on the answers given here, I wrote a simple function returning a global boolean variable which you can then use down the line. It's very easy to check for IE.

var isIE;
(function() {
    var ua = window.navigator.userAgent,
        msie = ua.indexOf('MSIE '),
        trident = ua.indexOf('Trident/');

    isIE = (msie > -1 || trident > -1) ? true : false;
})();

if (isIE) {
    alert("I am an Internet Explorer!");
}

This way you only have to do the look up once, and you store the result in a variable, rather than having to fetch the result on each function call. (As far as I know you don't even have to wait for document ready to execute this code as the user-agent is not related to the DOM.)

Answer 2

Using modernizr

Modernizr.addTest('ie', function () {
    var ua = window.navigator.userAgent;
    var msie = ua.indexOf('MSIE ') > 0;
    var ie11 = ua.indexOf('Trident/') > 0;
    var ie12 = ua.indexOf('Edge/') > 0;
    return msie || ie11 || ie12;
});

Answer 3

@SpiderCode's solution does not work with IE 11. Here is the best solution that I used henceforth in my code where I need browser detection for particular feature.

IE11 no longer reports as MSIE, according to this list of changes, it's intentional to avoid mis-detection.

What you can do if you really want to know it's IE is to detect the Trident/ string in the user agent if navigator.appName returns Netscape, something like (the untested);

Thanks to this answer

function isIE()
{
  var rv = -1;
  if (navigator.appName == 'Microsoft Internet Explorer')
  {
    var ua = navigator.userAgent;
    var re  = new RegExp("MSIE ([0-9]{1,}[\.0-9]{0,})");
    if (re.exec(ua) != null)
      rv = parseFloat( RegExp.$1 );
  }
  else if (navigator.appName == 'Netscape')
  {
    var ua = navigator.userAgent;
    var re  = new RegExp("Trident/.*rv:([0-9]{1,}[\.0-9]{0,})");
    if (re.exec(ua) != null)
      rv = parseFloat( RegExp.$1 );
  }
  return rv == -1 ? false: true;
}

Answer 4

This returns true for any version of Internet Explorer:

function isIE(userAgent) {
  userAgent = userAgent || navigator.userAgent;
  return userAgent.indexOf("MSIE ") > -1 || userAgent.indexOf("Trident/") > -1 || userAgent.indexOf("Edge/") > -1;
}

The userAgent parameter is optional and it defaults to the browser's user agent.

Answer 5

You can dectect all Internet Explorer (Last Version Tested 12).

<script>
    var $userAgent = '';
    if(/MSIE/i['test'](navigator['userAgent'])==true||/rv/i['test'](navigator['userAgent'])==true||/Edge/i['test'](navigator['userAgent'])==true){
       $userAgent='ie';
    } else {
       $userAgent='other';
    }

    alert($userAgent);
</script>

See here https://jsfiddle.net/v7npeLwe/

Answer 6

JavaScript function to detect the version of Internet Explorer or Edge

function ieVersion(uaString) {
  uaString = uaString || navigator.userAgent;
  var match = /\b(MSIE |Trident.*?rv:|Edge\/)(\d+)/.exec(uaString);
  if (match) return parseInt(match[2])
}