CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptinternet-exploreruser-agentbrowser-detection
Chad Decker
Chad Decker

Reputation: 6177

Detect IE version (prior to v9) in JavaScript

I want to bounce users of our web site to an error page if they're using a version of Internet Explorer prior to v9. It's just not worth our time and money to support IE pre-v9. Users of all other non-IE browsers are fine and shouldn't be bounced. Here's the proposed code:

if(navigator.appName.indexOf("Internet Explorer")!=-1){     //yeah, he's using IE
    var badBrowser=(
        navigator.appVersion.indexOf("MSIE 9")==-1 &&   //v9 is ok
        navigator.appVersion.indexOf("MSIE 1")==-1  //v10, 11, 12, etc. is fine too
    );

    if(badBrowser){
        // navigate to error page
    }
}

Will this code do the trick?

To head off a few comments that will probably be coming my way:

  1. Yes, I know that users can forge their useragent string. I'm not concerned.
  2. Yes, I know that programming pros prefer sniffing out feature-support instead of browser-type but I don't feel this approach makes sense in this case. I already know that all (relevant) non-IE browsers support the features that I need and that all pre-v9 IE browsers don't. Checking feature by feature throughout the site would be a waste.
  3. Yes, I know that someone trying to access the site using IE v1 (or >= 20) wouldn't get 'badBrowser' set to true and the warning page wouldn't be displayed properly. That's a risk we're willing to take.
  4. Yes, I know that Microsoft has "conditional comments" that can be used for precise browser version detection. IE no longer supports conditional comments as of IE 10, rendering this approach absolutely useless.

Any other obvious issues to be aware of?

Upvotes: 252

Views: 390037

Answers (30)

Jakob Sternberg
Jakob Sternberg

Reputation: 1869

There's already a property for this built into iexplorer

console.log(document.documentMode); // ==> 11

Upvotes: 0

Gabriel Llamas
Gabriel Llamas

Reputation: 18437

Detecting IE version using feature detection (IE6+, browsers prior to IE6 are detected as 6, returns null for non-IE browsers):

var ie = (function (){
    if (window.ActiveXObject === undefined) return null; //Not IE
    if (!window.XMLHttpRequest) return 6;
    if (!document.querySelector) return 7;
    if (!document.addEventListener) return 8;
    if (!window.atob) return 9;
    if (!document.__proto__) return 10;
    return 11;
})();

Edit: I've created a bower/npm repo for your convenience: ie-version

Update:

a more compact version can be written in one line as:

return window.ActiveXObject === undefined ? null : !window.XMLHttpRequest ? 6 : !document.querySelector ? 7 : !document.addEventListener ? 8 : !window.atob ? 9 : !document.__proto__ ? 10 : 11;

Upvotes: 21

iurii
iurii

Reputation: 4230

Here is the way AngularJS checks for IE

/**
 * documentMode is an IE-only property
 * http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ie/cc196988(v=vs.85).aspx
 */
var msie = document.documentMode;

if (msie < 9) {
    // code for IE < 9
}

Upvotes: 34

Giacomo
Giacomo

Reputation: 94

or simply

//   IE 10: ua = 'Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 10.0; Windows NT 6.2; Trident/6.0)'; 
//   IE 11: ua = 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; Trident/7.0; rv:11.0) like Gecko'; 
// Edge 12: ua = 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/39.0.2171.71 Safari/537.36 Edge/12.0'; 
// Edge 13: ua = 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/46.0.2486.0 Safari/537.36 Edge/13.10586'; 

var isIE = navigator.userAgent.match(/MSIE|Trident|Edge/)
var IEVersion = ((navigator.userAgent.match(/(?:MSIE |Trident.*rv:|Edge\/)(\d+(\.\d+)?)/)) || []) [1]

Upvotes: 1

Rajib Chy
Rajib Chy

Reputation: 880

function getIEVersion(){
     if (/MSIE |Trident\//.test( navigator.userAgent )=== false) return -1;
    /**[IE <=9]*/
    var isIE9L = typeof ( window.attachEvent ) === 'function' && !( Object.prototype.toString.call( window.opera ) == '[object Opera]' ) ? true : false;
    var re;
    if(isIE9L){
        re = new RegExp( "MSIE ([0-9]{1,}[\.0-9]{0,})" );
        if(re.exec( navigator.userAgent ) !== null)
            return parseFloat( RegExp.$1 );
        return -1;
    }
    /**[/IE <=9]*/
    /** [IE >= 10]*/
    if(navigator.userAgent.indexOf( 'Trident/' ) > -1){
        re = new RegExp( "rv:([0-9]{1,}[\.0-9]{0,})" );
        if(re.exec( navigator.userAgent ) !== null)
            return parseFloat( RegExp.$1 );
        return -1;
    }
    /**[/IE >= 10]*/
    return -1;
};

Check here ==>

var ieVersion = getIEVersion();

if(ieVersion < 0){
    //Not IE
}
//A version of IE

Learn more about browser navigator https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/navigator

Upvotes: 0

Pablo
Pablo

Reputation: 586

It helped me

function IsIE8Browser() {
  var rv = -1;
  var ua = navigator.userAgent;
  var re = new RegExp("Trident\/([0-9]{1,}[\.0-9]{0,})");
  if (re.exec(ua) != null) {
    rv = parseFloat(RegExp.$1);
  }
  return (rv == 4);
}

Upvotes: 0

user7892745
user7892745

Reputation:

Don't over complicate such simple things. Just use a plain and simple JScript conditional comment. It is the fastest because it adds zero code to non-IE browsers for the detection, and it has compatibility dating back to versions of IE before HTML conditional comments were supported. In short,

var IE_version=(-1/*@cc_on,@_jscript_version@*/);

Beware of minifiers: most (if not all) will mistake the special conditional comment for a regular comment, and remove it

Basically, then above code sets the value of IE_version to the version of IE you are using, or -1 f you are not using IE. A live demonstration:

var IE_version=(-1/*@cc_on,@_jscript_version@*/);
if (IE_version!==-1){
    document.write("<h1>You are using Internet Explorer " + IE_version + "</h1>");
} else {
    document.write("<h1>You are not using a version of Internet Explorer less than 11</h1>");
}

This works based on the fact that conditional comments are only visible in older versions of Internet Explorer, and IE sets @_jscript_version to the version of the browser. For example, if you are using Internet Explorer 7, then @_jscript_version will be set to 7, thus, the postprocessed javascript that will be executed will actually look like this:

var IE_version=(-1,7);

which gets evaluated to 7.

Upvotes: 0

jeetaz
jeetaz

Reputation: 731

The below codepen identifies IE version in all cases (IE<=9, IE10, IE11 and IE/Edge)

function detectIE() {
    var ua = window.navigator.userAgent;
    var msie = ua.indexOf('MSIE ');
    if (msie > 0) {
        // IE 10 or older => return version number
        return parseInt(ua.substring(msie + 5, ua.indexOf('.', msie)), 10);
    }
    var trident = ua.indexOf('Trident/');
    if (trident > 0) {
        // IE 11 => return version number
        var rv = ua.indexOf('rv:');
        return parseInt(ua.substring(rv + 3, ua.indexOf('.', rv)), 10);
    }
    var edge = ua.indexOf('Edge/');
    if (edge > 0) {
        // Edge (IE 12+) => return version number
        return parseInt(ua.substring(edge + 5, ua.indexOf('.', edge)), 10);
    }
    // other browser
    return false;
}

ref: https://codepen.io/gapcode/pen/vEJNZN

Upvotes: 0

danrichards
danrichards

Reputation: 223

I made a convenient underscore mixin for this.

_.isIE();        // Any version of IE?
_.isIE(9);       // IE 9?
_.isIE([7,8,9]); // IE 7, 8 or 9?


_.mixin({
  isIE: function(mixed) {
    if (_.isUndefined(mixed)) {
      mixed = [7, 8, 9, 10, 11];
    } else if (_.isNumber(mixed)) {
      mixed = [mixed];
    }
    for (var j = 0; j < mixed.length; j++) {
      var re;
      switch (mixed[j]) {
        case 11:
          re = /Trident.*rv\:11\./g;
          break;
        case 10:
          re = /MSIE\s10\./g;
          break;
        case 9:
          re = /MSIE\s9\./g;
          break;
        case 8:
          re = /MSIE\s8\./g;
          break;
        case 7:
          re = /MSIE\s7\./g;
          break;
      }

      if (!!window.navigator.userAgent.match(re)) {
        return true;
      }
    }

    return false;
  }
});

console.log(_.isIE());
console.log(_.isIE([7, 8, 9]));
console.log(_.isIE(11));
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/underscore.js/1.8.3/underscore-min.js"></script>

Upvotes: 1

Jezen Thomas
Jezen Thomas

Reputation: 13800

This is my preferred way of doing it. It gives maximum control. (Note: Conditional statements are only supported in IE5 - 9.)

First set up your ie classes correctly

<!DOCTYPE html>
<!--[if lt IE 7]> <html class="lt-ie9 lt-ie8 lt-ie7"> <![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 7]>    <html class="lt-ie9 lt-ie8"> <![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 8]>    <html class="lt-ie9"> <![endif]-->
<!--[if gt IE 8]><!--> <html> <!--<![endif]-->    
<head>

Then you can just use CSS to make style exceptions, or, if you require, you can add some simple JavaScript:

(function ($) {
    "use strict";

    // Detecting IE
    var oldIE;
    if ($('html').is('.lt-ie7, .lt-ie8, .lt-ie9')) {
        oldIE = true;
    }

    if (oldIE) {
        // Here's your JS for IE..
    } else {
        // ..And here's the full-fat code for everyone else
    }

}(jQuery));

Thanks to Paul Irish.

Upvotes: 355

Grey Perez
Grey Perez

Reputation: 20478

This has been answered to death, but this is all you need.

!!navigator.userAgent.match(/msie\s[5-8]/i)

Upvotes: 4

Fong-Wan Chau
Fong-Wan Chau

Reputation: 2289

Your code can do the check, but as you thought, if someone try to access your page using IE v1 or > v19 will not get the error, so might be more safely do the check with Regex expression like this code below:

var userAgent = navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase();
// Test if the browser is IE and check the version number is lower than 9
if (/msie/.test(userAgent) && 
    parseFloat((userAgent.match(/.*(?:rv|ie)[\/: ](.+?)([ \);]|$)/) || [])[1]) < 9) {
  // Navigate to error page
}

Upvotes: 10

Liberateur
Liberateur

Reputation: 1487

// Detect ie <= 10
var ie = /MSIE ([0-9]+)/g.exec(window.navigator.userAgent)[1] || undefined;

console.log(ie);
// Return version ie or undefined if not ie or ie > 10

Upvotes: 0

Bruce
Bruce

Reputation: 2196

if (!document.addEventListener) {
    // ie8
} else if (!window.btoa) {
    // ie9
}
// others

Upvotes: 0

Beaudinn Greve
Beaudinn Greve

Reputation: 820

To reliably filter IE8 and older, checking global objects can be used:

if (document.all && !document.addEventListener) {
    alert('IE8 or lower');
}

Upvotes: 28

jtbr
jtbr

Reputation: 1179

This approach to detecting IE combines the strengths and avoids the weaknesses of jKey's answer using conditional comments and Owen's answer using user agents.

  • jKey's approach works up to version 9 and immune to user agent spoofing in IE 8 & 9.

  • Owen's approach can fail on IE 5 & 6 (reporting 7) and is susceptible to UA spoofing, but it can detect IE versions >= 10 (now also including 12, which postdates Owen's answer). 

    // ----------------------------------------------------------
// A short snippet for detecting versions of IE
// ----------------------------------------------------------
// If you're not in IE (or IE version is less than 5) then:
//     ie === undefined
// Thus, to detect IE:
//     if (ie) {}
// And to detect the version:
//     ie === 6 // IE6
//     ie > 7 // IE8, IE9 ...
// ----------------------------------------------------------
var ie = (function(){
    var v = 3,
        div = document.createElement('div'),
        all = div.getElementsByTagName('i');

    while (
        div.innerHTML = '<!--[if gt IE ' + (++v) + ']><i></i><![endif]-->',
        all[0]
    );
    if (v <= 4) { // Check for IE>9 using user agent
        var match = navigator.userAgent.match(/(?:MSIE |Trident\/.*; rv:|Edge\/)(\d+)/);
        v = match ? parseInt(match[1]) : undefined;
    }
    return v;
}());

This can be used to set useful classes to your document containing the IE version:

    if (ie) {
        document.documentElement.className += ' ie' + ie;
        if (ie < 9)
            document.documentElement.className += ' ieLT9';
    }

Note that it detects the compatibility mode being used, if IE is in compatability mode. Also note that IE version is mostly useful for older versions (<10); higher versions are more standards-compliant and it's probably better to instead check for features using something like modernizr.js.

Upvotes: 1

Julio Cesar Boaroli
Julio Cesar Boaroli

Reputation: 181

I do like that:

<script>
   function isIE () {
       var myNav = navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase();
       return (myNav.indexOf('msie') != -1) ? parseInt(myNav.split('msie')[1]) : false;
   }    
   var ua = window.navigator.userAgent;
   //Internet Explorer | if | 9-11

   if (isIE () == 9) {
       alert("Shut down this junk! | IE 9");
   } else if (isIE () == 10){
       alert("Shut down this junk! | IE 10");
   } else if (ua.indexOf("Trident/7.0") > 0) {
       alert("Shut down this junk! | IE 11");
   }else{
       alert("Thank god it's not IE!");
   }

</script>

Upvotes: 1

John Munsch
John Munsch

Reputation: 19528

I'm going to recommend not rewriting this code for the umpteenth time. I would recommend you use the Conditionizr library (http://conditionizr.com/) which is capable of testing for specific IE versions as well as other browsers, operating systems, and even the presence or absence of Retina displays.

Include the code for only the specific tests you need and you also gain the benefit of a tested library which has been through many iterations (and which would be easy to upgrade without breaking your code).

It also meshes nicely with Modernizr which can handle all of those cases where you are better off testing for a specific capability rather than a specific browser.

Upvotes: 1

weroro
weroro

Reputation: 1702

Return IE version or if not IE return false

function isIE () {
  var myNav = navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase();
  return (myNav.indexOf('msie') != -1) ? parseInt(myNav.split('msie')[1]) : false;
}

Example:

if (isIE () == 8) {
 // IE8 code
} else {
 // Other versions IE or not IE
}

or

if (isIE () && isIE () < 9) {
 // is IE version less than 9
} else {
 // is IE 9 and later or not IE
}

or 

if (isIE()) {
 // is IE
} else {
 // Other browser
}

Upvotes: 163

xicooc
xicooc

Reputation: 851

var isIE9OrBelow = function()
{
   return /MSIE\s/.test(navigator.userAgent) && parseFloat(navigator.appVersion.split("MSIE")[1]) < 10;
}

Upvotes: 0

James Gray
James Gray

Reputation: 9

Simple solution stop thinking browser and use the year.

var year = eval(today.getYear());
if(year < 1900 )
 {alert('Good to go: All browsers and IE 9 & >');}
else
 {alert('Get with it and upgrade your IE to 9 or >');}

Upvotes: -1

xicooc
xicooc

Reputation: 851

Window runs IE10 will be auto update to IE11+ and will be standardized W3C

Nowaday, we don't need to support IE8-

    <!DOCTYPE html>
    <!--[if lt IE 9]><html class="ie ie8"><![endif]-->
    <!--[if IE 9]><html class="ie ie9"><![endif]-->
    <!--[if (gt IE 9)|!(IE)]><!--><html><!--<![endif]-->
    <head>
        ...
        <!--[if lt IE 8]><meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="0;url=/error-browser.html"><![endif]--
        ...
    </head>

Upvotes: 0

Krish_Teja
Krish_Teja

Reputation: 1

Using JQuery:

http://tanalin.com/en/articles/ie-version-js/

Using C#:

var browser = Request.Browser.Browser;

Upvotes: -1

Arnold.Krumins
Arnold.Krumins

Reputation: 1085

Conditional comments are no longer supported in IE as of Version 10 as noted on the Microsoft reference page.

var ieDetector = function() {
  var browser = { // browser object

      verIE: null,
      docModeIE: null,
      verIEtrue: null,
      verIE_ua: null

    },
    tmp;

  tmp = document.documentMode;
  try {
    document.documentMode = "";
  } catch (e) {};

  browser.isIE = typeof document.documentMode == "number" || eval("/*@cc_on!@*/!1");
  try {
    document.documentMode = tmp;
  } catch (e) {};

  // We only let IE run this code.
  if (browser.isIE) {
    browser.verIE_ua =
      (/^(?:.*?[^a-zA-Z])??(?:MSIE|rv\s*\:)\s*(\d+\.?\d*)/i).test(navigator.userAgent || "") ?
      parseFloat(RegExp.$1, 10) : null;

    var e, verTrueFloat, x,
      obj = document.createElement("div"),

      CLASSID = [
        "{45EA75A0-A269-11D1-B5BF-0000F8051515}", // Internet Explorer Help
        "{3AF36230-A269-11D1-B5BF-0000F8051515}", // Offline Browsing Pack
        "{89820200-ECBD-11CF-8B85-00AA005B4383}"
      ];

    try {
      obj.style.behavior = "url(#default#clientcaps)"
    } catch (e) {};

    for (x = 0; x < CLASSID.length; x++) {
      try {
        browser.verIEtrue = obj.getComponentVersion(CLASSID[x], "componentid").replace(/,/g, ".");
      } catch (e) {};

      if (browser.verIEtrue) break;

    };
    verTrueFloat = parseFloat(browser.verIEtrue || "0", 10);
    browser.docModeIE = document.documentMode ||
      ((/back/i).test(document.compatMode || "") ? 5 : verTrueFloat) ||
      browser.verIE_ua;
    browser.verIE = verTrueFloat || browser.docModeIE;
  };

  return {
    isIE: browser.isIE,
    Version: browser.verIE
  };

}();

document.write('isIE: ' + ieDetector.isIE + "<br />");
document.write('IE Version Number: ' + ieDetector.Version);

then use:

if((ieDetector.isIE) && (ieDetector.Version <= 9))
{

}

Upvotes: 8

Nimesh
Nimesh

Reputation: 3620

If you need to delect IE Browser version then you can follow below code. This code working well for version IE6 to IE11 

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>

<p>Click on Try button to check IE Browser version.</p>

<button onclick="getInternetExplorerVersion()">Try it</button>

<p id="demo"></p>

<script>
function getInternetExplorerVersion() {
   var ua = window.navigator.userAgent;
        var msie = ua.indexOf("MSIE ");
        var rv = -1;

        if (msie > 0 || !!navigator.userAgent.match(/Trident.*rv\:11\./))      // If Internet Explorer, return version number
        {               
            if (isNaN(parseInt(ua.substring(msie + 5, ua.indexOf(".", msie))))) {
                //For IE 11 >
                if (navigator.appName == 'Netscape') {
                    var ua = navigator.userAgent;
                    var re = new RegExp("Trident/.*rv:([0-9]{1,}[\.0-9]{0,})");
                    if (re.exec(ua) != null) {
                        rv = parseFloat(RegExp.$1);
                        alert(rv);
                    }
                }
                else {
                    alert('otherbrowser');
                }
            }
            else {
                //For < IE11
                alert(parseInt(ua.substring(msie + 5, ua.indexOf(".", msie))));
            }
            return false;
        }}
</script>

</body>
</html>

Upvotes: 0

Brian
Brian

Reputation: 61

To detect Internet Explorer 10|11 you can use this little script immediatelly after body tag:

In my case i use jQuery library loaded in head. 

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<head>
    <script src="//code.jquery.com/jquery-1.11.0.min.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
    <script>if (navigator.appVersion.indexOf('Trident/') != -1) $("body").addClass("ie10");</script>
</body>
</html>

Upvotes: 3

Frank Conijn - Support Ukraine
Frank Conijn - Support Ukraine

Reputation: 3190

Detecting IE and its versions couldn't be easier, and all you need is a bit of native/vanilla Javascript: 

var uA = navigator.userAgent;
var browser = null;
var ieVersion = null;

if (uA.indexOf('MSIE 6') >= 0) {
    browser = 'IE';
    ieVersion = 6;
}
if (uA.indexOf('MSIE 7') >= 0) {
    browser = 'IE';
    ieVersion = 7;
}
if (document.documentMode) { // as of IE8
    browser = 'IE';
    ieVersion = document.documentMode;
}

And this is a way to use it: 

if (browser == 'IE' && ieVersion <= 9) 
    document.documentElement.className += ' ie9-';

.

Works in all IE versions, including higher versions in lower Compatability View/Mode, and documentMode is IE proprietary.

Upvotes: 0

Ric
Ric

Reputation: 650

I realise I am a little late to the party here, but I had been checking out a simple one line way to provide feedback on whether a browser is IE and what version from 10 down it was. I haven't coded this for version 11, so perhaps a little amendment will be needed for that.

However this is the code, it works as an object that has a property and a method and relies on object detection rather than scraping the navigator object (which is massively flawed as it can be spoofed).

var isIE = { browser:/*@cc_on!@*/false, detectedVersion: function () { return (typeof window.atob !== "undefined") ? 10 : (typeof document.addEventListener !== "undefined") ? 9 : (typeof document.querySelector !== "undefined") ? 8 : (typeof window.XMLHttpRequest !== "undefined") ? 7 : (typeof document.compatMode !== "undefined") ? 6 : 5; } };

The usage is isIE.browser a property that returns a boolean and relies on conditional comments the method isIE.detectedVersion() which returns a number between 5 and 10. I am making the assumption that anything lower than 6 and you are in serious old school territory and you will something more beefy than a one liner and anything higher than 10 and you are in to newer territory. I have read something about IE11 not supporting conditional comments but I've not fully investigated, that is maybe for a later date.

Anyway, as it is, and for a one liner, it will cover the basics of IE browser and version detection. It's far from perfect, but it is small and easily amended.

Just for reference, and if anyone is in any doubt on how to actually implement this then the following conditional should help. 

var isIE = { browser:/*@cc_on!@*/false, detectedVersion: function () { return (typeof window.atob !== "undefined") ? 10 : (typeof document.addEventListener !== "undefined") ? 9 : (typeof document.querySelector !== "undefined") ? 8 : (typeof window.XMLHttpRequest !== "undefined") ? 7 : (typeof document.compatMode !== "undefined") ? 6 : 5; } };

/* testing IE */

if (isIE.browser) {
  alert("This is an IE browser, with a detected version of : " + isIE.detectedVersion());
}

Upvotes: 1

Andreas
Andreas

Reputation: 21911

If nobody else has added an addEventLister-method and you're using the correct browser mode then you could check for IE 8 or less with

if (window.attachEvent && !window.addEventListener) {
    // "bad" IE
}

Legacy Internet Explorer and attachEvent (MDN)

Upvotes: 118

Owen
Owen

Reputation: 640

This function will return the IE major version number as an integer, or undefined if the browser isn't Internet Explorer. This, like all user agent solutions, is suceptible to user agent spoofing (which has been an official feature of IE since version 8).

function getIEVersion() {
    var match = navigator.userAgent.match(/(?:MSIE |Trident\/.*; rv:)(\d+)/);
    return match ? parseInt(match[1]) : undefined;
}

Upvotes: 17

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