Question

Detect and analyze browser / user-agent string

Asked by: Yavor_01126

Hi!

I am storing into a database the user-agent of the logged in users.

My question is how to effectively scan/analyze the user-agent string so I can extract from it what is the browser, browser version, engine, platform/os and language?

I'm looking for explanations and maybe some regular expression solutions.

I've searched all over the internet for a solution or a least a standard about user-agent strings that I can use but with no luck :(

My code is in Ruby but PHP or pseudo code will be fine.

Thanks!

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2009-08-29 at 15:27:08ID24692453
Tags

user-agent

,

browser

Topics

Web Browsers

,

Miscellaneous Web Development

,

Ruby Scripting Language

Participating Experts
3
Points
500
Comments
5

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. Network Analyzer
    Lookin for a network analyzer for our 13 sites. We have servers at about 8 of those sites. Can we have just one runnint at each location, then feeding that information back to a main svr? Would like to find a free one, a cheap one, and whats the best out there?
  2. Scripting Snapshot agents
    Hello. I have several merge publications on a SQL Server 2000 database with remote clients synchronizing from the field. I want to be able to write a script to run all of the snapshot agents for these publications on demand (there are several snapshot agents). I have a mai...
  3. Run DTS package from Query Analyzer?
    How do I run a dts package from Query Analyzer? What is the syntax? Thanks.
  4. Any web traffic analyzers to monitor remote sites?
    I'm looking for a web traffic analyzer that I can centrally manager remote sites, something that can be viewed online too. I like how Google Analytics is doing it, they make you put a couple lines of Javascript that calls one of their sites. It there something like this that ...
  5. Cisco ASA Log Analyzer ??
    Hi all, I just configured my logging server for my Cisco ASA (3CDaemon) And I need a good open source log analyzer. Can you recommend some ??? Thanks a lot for your support !

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: netbuzzPosted on 2009-08-29 at 19:25:22ID: 25216154

JavaScript code to detect browser vendor, version, and Operating System: http://www.creaweb.fr/DHTML/faq/browser.html

For language detection: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=5946242&postcount=3

 

by: cduvPosted on 2009-08-30 at 03:23:15ID: 25217054

Maybe this helps. In my experience more than extracting the details of the browser string I have analyzed the follow things:

1) Detect if is a Crawler/ Bot
This will help you to diferenciate the true users from bot visits.

def is_crawler?(agent)
  testv=false
  testm=false

  case agent
  when /Slurp/,/Sitemaps/, /Mediapartners-Google/, /VoilaBot/ ,
  /Googlebot/, /Spider/, /msnbot/,
  /SnapPreviewBot/, /ichiro/, /Jeeves/,
   /Baidu/, /CazoodleBot/, /Crawler/,/Pagebull/,/shelob/,/PECL/,
   /Gigabot/, /libwww-perl/, /lwp-trivial/,/SiteUptime/,/Slurp/,/Twiceler/,/Newskraft/, /crawler/,/HTTP/,/Scoutjet/,/Plagger/,
    /FeedHub/, /SimplePie/, /Yeti/, /AideRSS/, /Sogou/, /Gaisbot/,/robot/, /crawler/ ,/curl/, /LeapTag/, /Java/,/Moreoverbot/,
    /Feedfetcher/,/attributor/,/http/

    testv = true

  end
   case agent
   when /Mozilla/
     #Verify if Mozilla is present in the agent
     testm=true
   end
   if testm==true and testv==false then
   case agent
   when /Opera/
     testm=false
   end
 end
   #if mozilla isn't present and is not crawler. Make it crawler.
   if testm==false and testv==false then
     testv=true
    end
  return testv
end

2) Detect if is a mobile browser

def is_mobile(agent)

testv=false
 if not is_crawler(agent) then
  case agent
  when /Nokia/, /AvantGo/, /DoCoMo/,
  /Vodafone/, /PalmOS/, /Windows CE/,
  /Minimo/, /Plucker/, /Palmsource/,
   /NetFront/, /PIE/, /iPhone/,
    /BlackBerry/, /MOT-/, /Nokia/,
     /Symbian/, /O2/, /Mini/,
      /Blazer/, /MobileExplorer/, /RegKing/,
       /EPOC/, /SAGEM/, /SCH-/,
        /SGH/, /SonyEricsson/,
         /Tablet/
    testv= true
  else
    testv= false
  end
 else
   testv=false
 end
   return testv
end


Hopem this practical use helps.

 

by: Yavor_01126Posted on 2009-08-30 at 06:49:06ID: 25217657

Isn't there a prettier solution?

I don't really want to define if Opera if Mozilla and so on...
Isn't there a standard like the string that is between the brakets after the third comma is the browser version or something like that?

 

by: SkrobotovPosted on 2009-11-12 at 20:07:09ID: 25811300

All browsers, especially mobile ones differ greatly from each other, there are no regular expression or pattern that would extract all info from all agents. It's up to manufacturers to come up with the User Agents for their devices, so even same devices with different software versions will have different user agent string. So as far as I know the best way is to maintain a database of all known user agents and match it against detected agents and do a certain task. Even Nokia does it so - the company I work for.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...