[Browser detection removed as it broke the validation of my RSS feed. Check the author's site if you want to try it out.]
This browser detection uses pure HTML 2.0, without any JS or CSS. Here's how it's done. It even distinguishes Firefox 1.5 from Firefox 2. Can any parser hackers extend it to further distinguish Firefox 3?
Posted by gerv at May 17, 2008 8:03 AM | TrackBackNice try... However, it detects my Safari (on Win XP, all settings are by default) as Opera when I read your blog via Google Reader, and as Firefox when I read your blog directly.
Just great; on the author's page it considers my Safari to be IE.
Posted by: Alexey Filippov at May 17, 2008 8:48 AMThat would be Opera when read through Google Reader at all (I read it there with Firefox)
Posted by: Callek at May 17, 2008 8:55 AMIt seems both Google Reader and Gervase's blog engine preprocess the HTML, so that \x00 gets replaced to \xEFBF here. (I've lost a link to Google, so cannot check it out)
Posted by: Alexey Filippov at May 17, 2008 9:17 AMBoth Safari 3 and Camino trunk are identified as Firefox here, on Leopard.
Posted by: Ben Willmore at May 17, 2008 9:26 AMBoth Safari 3 and Camino trunk are identified as Firefox here, on Leopard.
Posted by: Ben at May 17, 2008 9:27 AMWell, I tried to turn off as much preprocessing as possible. My version is probably not accurate, then. Check the author's site as well before posting results, please!
Posted by: Gerv at May 17, 2008 10:53 AMYou could maybe detect firefox 3 with some added object-tag testing, though then it wouldn't be HTML 2.0...
Posted by: ant at May 17, 2008 1:07 PMWebKit trunk is showing up as Firefox here, and IE on the author's site.
Posted by: David Smith at May 17, 2008 11:34 PMThe version in your RSS feed is showing up as Firefox when viewed in NetNewswire Lite (and it's pretty likely to be using Webkit as the rendering engine, though I haven't looked).
Posted by: Dave Miller at May 18, 2008 3:28 AMWorks perfectly now (FF 3.0 on Linux), but in Google Reader it thought I was an Opera user.
Posted by: Andrew Min at May 18, 2008 7:01 PMOn Mac OS X 10.3.9 Camino is detected as Firefox (same Geko as Firefox) and Safari 1.3.2 is detected as Safari 2.