Detect any browser using JavaScript and PHP

There is a case when we want to detect a browser to handle a particular feature in the application. In this article, we will detect any browser using JavaScript.

Introduction

JavaScript has a built-in navigator.userAgent function that is supported by almost all browsers. We can use it to detect browsers.

The syntax is:

var w3agent = navigator.userAgent;

If we console.log the above code we will get the following results in the browser’s console:

The messages printed in the console vary from browser to browser.

Browser Compatibility for navigator.userAgent

The navigator.userAgent is JavaScript’s native function which is supported by all browsers.

Reference: https://caniuse.com/?search=navigator.userAgent

Now, let’s move on to the other part of the article where we will detect any browser using JavaScript and add logic according to the specific browser.

Detect any browser using JavaScript

We will use the navigator.userAgent function and encapsulate it in the if conditions. The code is:

<script type="text/javascript"> 
  var w3Browser, w3UserAgent = navigator.userAgent;

  if (w3UserAgent.indexOf("Firefox") > -1) {
    w3Browser = "Mozilla Firefox";
  } 
  else if (w3UserAgent.indexOf("SamsungBrowser") > -1) {
    w3Browser = "Samsung Internet";
  } 
  else if (w3UserAgent.indexOf("Opera") > -1 || w3UserAgent.indexOf("OPR") > -1) {
    w3Browser = "Opera";
  } 
  else if (w3UserAgent.indexOf("Trident") > -1) {
    w3Browser = "Internet Explorer";
  } 
  else if (w3UserAgent.indexOf("Edge") > -1) {
    w3Browser = "Microsoft Edge";
  } 
  else if (w3UserAgent.indexOf("Chrome") > -1) {
    w3Browser = "Google Chrome or Chromium";
  } 
  else if (w3UserAgent.indexOf("Safari") > -1) {
    w3Browser = "Safari";
  } 
  else {
    w3Browser = "Unknown";
  }

  console.log("The browser is: " + w3Browser);
</script>

This code will detect any browser using JavaScript. You can write the browser’s specific logic in the scope of each if condition.

Detect any browser using PHP

We can also detect a browser by using PHP. The code is:

<?php
  echo $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] . "\n\n";
  $browser = get_browser(null, true);
  print_r($browser);
?>

The output is similar to as below:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040803 Firefox/0.9.3

Array
(
    [browser_name_regex] => ^mozilla/5\.0 (windows; .; windows nt 5\.1; .*rv:.*) gecko/.* firefox/0\.9.*$
    [browser_name_pattern] => Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; ?; Windows NT 5.1; *rv:*) Gecko/* Firefox/0.9*
    [parent] => Firefox 0.9
    [platform] => WinXP
    [browser] => Firefox
    [version] => 0.9
    [majorver] => 0
    [minorver] => 9
    [cssversion] => 2
    [frames] => 1
    [iframes] => 1
    [tables] => 1
    [cookies] => 1
    [backgroundsounds] =>
    [vbscript] =>
    [javascript] => 1
    [javaapplets] => 1
    [activexcontrols] =>
    [cdf] =>
    [aol] =>
    [beta] => 1
    [win16] =>
    [crawler] =>
    [stripper] =>
    [wap] =>
    [netclr] =>
)

You can use PHP array functions to take the indexes of a particular object.

More to read

• The method to detect devices using device.js.
• How to Detect Internet Explorer and display a warning message.