The best browser detection solution in ASP.NET 4.0

Question

I googled this topic and I came across with three different ways to configure browser capabilities: browscap.ini, browserCaps element in web.config and .browser files in App_Browsers. I thought .browser files is the latest way, but I don't seem to find up-to-date files. But I found quite fresh browscap.ini from http://browsers.garykeith.com/downloads.asp.

My first priority is to exclude common crawlers from the visitor stats. The second priority is to detect browser and os with correct versions (e.g. Opera 11 / Win7).

Are there any libraries I could use? Is browscap.ini still a valid way and is it possible to use it without access to system files? Where can I find up-to-date .browser files?

Obadiah

browsers.garykeith.com/downloads.asp not found – Marchal

Answer 1

I found a user agent parser from http://user-agent-string.info/ and it seems to be good enough for my purposes.

Obadiah

Answer 2

more info : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/3yekbd5b.aspx Have you checked this :

    System.Web.HttpBrowserCapabilities browser = Request.Browser;
    string s = "Browser Capabilities\n"
        + "Type = "                    + browser.Type + "\n"
        + "Name = "                    + browser.Browser + "\n"
        + "Version = "                 + browser.Version + "\n"
        + "Major Version = "           + browser.MajorVersion + "\n"
        + "Minor Version = "           + browser.MinorVersion + "\n"
        + "Platform = "                + browser.Platform + "\n"
        + "Is Beta = "                 + browser.Beta + "\n"
        + "Is Crawler = "              + browser.Crawler + "\n"
        + "Is AOL = "                  + browser.AOL + "\n"
        + "Is Win16 = "                + browser.Win16 + "\n"
        + "Is Win32 = "                + browser.Win32 + "\n"
        + "Supports Frames = "         + browser.Frames + "\n"
        + "Supports Tables = "         + browser.Tables + "\n"
        + "Supports Cookies = "        + browser.Cookies + "\n"
        + "Supports VBScript = "       + browser.VBScript + "\n"
        + "Supports JavaScript = "     + 
            browser.EcmaScriptVersion.ToString() + "\n"
        + "Supports Java Applets = "   + browser.JavaApplets + "\n"
        + "Supports ActiveX Controls = " + browser.ActiveXControls 
              + "\n"
        + "Supports JavaScript Version = " +
            browser["JavaScriptVersion"] + "\n";

    TextBox1.Text = s;

Hen

I've been using Request.Browser to get browser information, but I need up-to-date config files. It gives me Opera 9.80/WinNT when I test with Opera 11/Win7. – Obadiah

Answer 3

Just so no one else goes down that dark path, be aware that even the jQuery team recommend that you DO NOT use jQuery.browser object:

"The $.browser property is deprecated in jQuery 1.3"

Markland

Answer 4

The best answer is feature detection, not browser detection! This is particularly true in the day where Firefox & Chrome are putting out releases ever few months and mobile browser use is growing. Use Modernizr (http://Modernizr.com) or an equivalent library to detect the features you are interested in.

Herbartian

I don't need to know if the browser supports the latest css or html5 tricks. I write about C#/.net programming and the target audience will most likely have Windows and bleeding edge browser. I'm curious to find out what were the others interested in. – Obadiah

As long as browser bugs exist, I'll want to know what browser people are using. If a client calls or emails me to say the page looks broken, I'll want to know their browser to see if I can repeat it. I'd rather detect and log their browser version in advance than try to get this info from them on the phone. – Macrophysics

Answer 5

So far I've used http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.browser/ for client side detection.

Mikiso

Its not recommended to use this. This is from the jQuery official Docs: "We recommend against using this property; please try to use feature detection instead (see jQuery.support). jQuery.browser may be moved to a plugin in a future release of jQuery." – Central

Indeed, it was deprecated in v1.3 and removed entirely in v1.9. – Azotobacter