Detecting browsers and operating systems
Just in case you want to write your own javascript detectors and page
redirection routines, we offer some free code below for
doing it.
1. How to detect the browser version
The browser manufacturer (e.g. Microsoft, Netscape) is given by the
javascript command "navigator.appName". The version is given
by "navigator.appVersion". The version is a long list of information
starting with the version number (e.g. 3.04, 4.01), and continuing
with information about the platform, language and other details.
The following code shows you this information.
<script>
browser = navigator.appName;
version = navigator.appVersion;
alert(browser + " " + version);
<script>
Click here to run this script.
The following code checks whether you are running a version 4 browser
or higher (Microsoft or Netscape), and loads a page depending on the result -
"oldpage.htm" is for the older browsers; "newpage.htm" is for the newer ones.
<script>
version = navigator.appVersion;
if (version.substring(0,1)<4) location = "oldpage.htm";
else location = "newpage.htm";
<script>
2. How to detect the operating system
If you want to detect OS and platform, you must be slightly
more careful. The javascript "appVersion" string varies in the
way it names operating systems and where it places the name
in the string. For example, Microsoft Windows might be called
"WinPC", "Win95", "Win98", "WinNT", "Windows NT", "Windows 95",
and so on, possibly with variation between upper and lower case.
But one thing is fairly certain: anything running Windows has
the string "win" somwhere in it (even if there are more letters
as well), and a Mac browser always has the string "mac" (even if
the full string is "Macintosh").
<script>
version = navigator.appVersion;
if (version.toLowerCase().indexOf("win")!=-1) location = "winpage.htm";
else if (version.toLowerCase().indexOf("mac")!=-1) location = "macpage.htm";
else location = "otherpage.htm";
<script>
The above code branches between three pages: "winpage.htm" is
for Windows users; "macpage.htm" is for Mac users; "otherpage.htm"
is for anybody else.
Click here to try the script.
