detect-browser

What is detect-browser?

The detect-browser npm package is used to determine information about the browser or node version that the code is running in. It can detect the browser name, version, and operating system. This is particularly useful for client-side scripting where you might need to tailor behavior or workarounds for specific browsers or versions.

What are detect-browser's main functionalities?

Detecting browser information

This feature allows you to detect the browser name, version, and operating system. The `detect` function returns an object with this information if it's able to determine it, otherwise it returns `null`.

const { detect } = require('detect-browser');
const browser = detect();
if (browser) {
  console.log(browser.name);
  console.log(browser.version);
  console.log(browser.os);
}

Detecting node information

This feature is used to detect if the code is running in Node.js and to determine the Node.js version. The `detect` function returns an object with the version if the environment is Node.js.

const { detect } = require('detect-browser');
const browser = detect();
if (browser && browser.type === 'node') {
  console.log(browser.version);
}

Bot detection

This feature allows you to detect if the user-agent is a bot. The `detect` function returns an object with a `bot` property set to `true` if a bot is detected.

const { detect } = require('detect-browser');
const browser = detect();
if (browser && browser.bot) {
  // Handle bot-specific logic
}

Other packages similar to detect-browser

platform

The 'platform' package is similar to 'detect-browser' as it can also parse the browser and operating system information from the user-agent string. It provides a more detailed breakdown of the operating system, device, and even the type of browser engine being used. However, it does not provide a simple API specifically for browser detection and may include more information than necessary for some use cases.

ua-parser-js

The 'ua-parser-js' package is another alternative that parses the user-agent string to detect browser, engine, OS, CPU, and device type/model. It is more comprehensive than 'detect-browser' and is regularly updated with new user-agent strings. However, it might be overkill for simple browser detection tasks and has a larger footprint.

bowser

The 'bowser' package is a robust parser for browser user-agent strings. It provides detailed information about the browser, including whether it is a mobile browser, if it's a webview, and the platform's type (tablet, mobile, desktop, tv, etc.). It is more feature-rich compared to 'detect-browser' but also larger in size, which might be a consideration for front-end use.

README

detect-browser

This is a package that attempts to detect a browser vendor and version (in a semver compatible format) using a navigator useragent in a browser or process.version in node.

Installation

Release History

Release history can be found in the github releases list.

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Example Usage

const { detect } = require('detect-browser');
const browser = detect();

// handle the case where we don't detect the browser
if (browser) {
  console.log(browser.name);
  console.log(browser.version);
  console.log(browser.os);
}

Or you can use a switch statement:

const { detect } = require('detect-browser');
const browser = detect();

// handle the case where we don't detect the browser
switch (browser && browser.name) {
  case 'chrome':
  case 'firefox':
    console.log('supported');
    break;

  case 'edge':
    console.log('kinda ok');
    break;

  default:
    console.log('not supported');
}

Additionally, from 5.x a type discriminator is included in the result should you want to use this (it's a nice convenience in a TS environment).

Contrived example:

import { detect } from '../src';

const result = detect();
if (result) {
  switch (result.type) {
    case 'bot':
      // result is an instanceof BotInfo
      console.log(`found ${result.name} bot`);
      break;

    case 'bot-device':
      // result is an instanceof SearchBotDeviceInfo
      console.log(`found ${result.name} device bot`);
      break;

    case 'browser':
      // result is an instanceof BrowserInfo
      console.log(`found ${result.name} browser`);
      break;

    case 'node':
      // result is an instanceof NodeInfo
      console.log(`found node version ${result.version}`);
      break;
  }
}

NOTE: In addition to the the detect function, browserName and detectOS are provided as exports if you want to only access certain information.

An editable observable workbook is available here.

Adding additional browser support

The current list of browsers that can be detected by detect-browser is not exhaustive. If you have a browser that you would like to add support for then please submit a pull request with the implementation.

Creating an acceptable implementation requires two things:

1. A test demonstrating that the regular expression you have defined identifies your new browser correctly. Examples of this can be found in the test/logic.js file.

2. Write the actual regex to the index.js file. In most cases adding the regex to the list of existing regexes will be suitable (if usage of detect-browser returns undefined for instance), but in some cases you might have to add it before an existing regex. This would be true for a case where you have a browser that is a specialised variant of an existing browser but is identified as the non-specialised case.

When writing the regular expression remember that you would write it containing a single capturing group which captures the version number of the browser.

LICENSE

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2019 Damon Oehlman [e-mail]

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.