What is bowser?
The bowser npm package is a browser detection library. It helps in identifying the browser and rendering engine a user is using, as well as providing information about the browser's capabilities, such as whether it supports touch events or service workers. This can be particularly useful for tailoring user experiences to different environments or for analytics and debugging purposes.
What are bowser's main functionalities?
Browser Detection
Detects the browser name using the user agent string.
const Bowser = require('bowser');
const browser = Bowser.getParser(window.navigator.userAgent);
const browserName = browser.getBrowserName();
Browser Version Detection
Determines the version of the browser being used.
const Bowser = require('bowser');
const browser = Bowser.getParser(window.navigator.userAgent);
const browserVersion = browser.getBrowserVersion();
Platform Detection
Identifies the platform (desktop, mobile, tablet, etc.) on which the browser is running.
const Bowser = require('bowser');
const browser = Bowser.getParser(window.navigator.userAgent);
const platformType = browser.getPlatformType();
Feature Checks
Checks if the browser supports certain features, such as touch events.
const Bowser = require('bowser');
const browser = Bowser.getParser(window.navigator.userAgent);
const supportsTouch = browser.satisfies({
'mobile': { 'touch': true }
});
OS Detection
Determines the operating system on which the browser is running.
const Bowser = require('bowser');
const browser = Bowser.getParser(window.navigator.userAgent);
const osName = browser.getOSName();
Other packages similar to bowser
useragent
The 'useragent' package is similar to 'bowser' in that it parses user agent strings to detect browser information. However, it focuses more on the parsing aspect and less on the browser's capabilities.
platform
The 'platform' package provides information about the operating system, browser, and device based on the user agent string. It is similar to 'bowser' but has a simpler API and less detailed detection of browser features.
detect-browser
The 'detect-browser' package is another alternative for detecting browser information from the user agent string. It is a smaller and more lightweight library compared to 'bowser', but it may not offer as comprehensive feature detection.
Bowser
A browser detector. Because sometimes, there is no other way, and not even good modern browsers always provide good feature detection mechanisms.
Contents
Overview
The library is made to help to detect what browser your user has and gives you a convenient API to filter the users somehow depending on their browsers.
Please, note that this is an alpha version. Check out the 1.x branch for a stable version.
Changes of version 2.0
The upcoming 2.0 version has drastically changed API. All available methods can be found in the docs
folder from now on and on a webpage soon.
Use cases
First of all, require the library. This is a UMD Module, so it will work for AMD, Typescript and CommonJS module systems.
const Bowser = require("bowser");
import * as Bowser from "bowser"
By default, the exported version is the ES5 transpiled version, which do not include any polyfills.
In case you don't use your own babel-polyfill
you may need to have pre-built bundle with all needed polyfills.
So, for you it's suitable to require bowser like this: require('bowser/bundled')
.
As the result, you get a ES5 version of bowser with babel-polyfill
bundled together.
You may need to use the source files, so they will be available in the package as well.
Browser props detection
Often we need to pick users' browser properties such as the name, the version, the rendering engine and so on. Here is an example how to do it with Bowser:
const browser = bowser.getParser(window.navigator.userAgent);
console.log(`The current browser name is "${browser.getBrowserName()}"`);
or
const impression = new Impression();
const browser = bowser.getParser(window.navigator.userAgent);
const browserInfo = browser.getBrowser();
impression.brName = browserInfo.name;
impression.brVer = browserInfo.version;
or
const browser = bowser.getParser(window.navigator.userAgent);
impression.userTechData = browser.parse();
console.log(impression.userTechData);
{
browser: {
name: "Internet Explorer"
version: "11.0"
},
os: {
name: "Windows"
version: "NT 6.3"
versionName: "8.1"
},
platform: {
type: "desktop"
},
engine: {
name: "Trident"
version: "7.0"
}
}
Filtering browsers
You could want to filter some particular browsers to provide any special support for them or make any workarounds.
It could look like this:
const browser = bowser.getParser(window.navigator.userAgent);
const isValidBrowser = browser.satisfies({
windows: {
"internet explorer": ">10",
},
macos: {
safari: ">10.1"
},
mobile: {
safari: '>=9',
'android browser': '>3.10'
},
chrome: "~20.1.1432",
firefox: ">31",
opera: ">=22"
chrome: "=20.1.1432",
chrome: "~20"
chrome: "~20.1"
});
Settings for any particular OS or platform has more priority and redefines settings of standalone browsers.
Thus, you can define OS or platform specific rules and they will have more priority in the end.
More of API and possibilities you will find in the docs
folder.
Contributing
We're always open to pull requests or code reviews. Everyone can become a permanent contributor. Just ping @lancedikson in the issues or on Twitter ❤️
If you'd like to contribute a change to bowser, modify the files in src/
, then run the following (you'll need node + npm installed):
$ npm install
$ npm run build
$ npm test
$ npm run lint
Adding tests
See the list in test/acceptance/useragentstrings.yml
with example user agents and their expected bowser object.
Whenever you add support for new browsers or notice a bug / mismatch, please update the list and
check if all tests are still passing.
Similar Projects
- Kong - A C# port of Bowser.
License
Licensed as MIT. All rights not explicitly granted in the MIT license are reserved. See the included LICENSE file for more details.