Browser sniffing

<p>Browser sniffing (also known as browser detection) is a set of techniques used in <a href="/facts/Website/SAsjJnca">websites</a> and <a href="/facts/Web_application/BLkF3BIN">web applications</a> in order to determine the <a href="/facts/Web_browser/2pfyymLs">web browser</a> a visitor is using, and to serve browser-appropriate content to the visitor. It is also used to detect <a href="/facts/Mobile_browser/tKvf0bfJ">mobile browsers</a> and send them mobile-optimized websites. This practice is sometimes used to circumvent incompatibilities between browsers due to misinterpretation of <a href="/facts/HTML/sSc3fT78">HTML</a>, <a href="/facts/Cascading_Style_Sheets/tA90XBQo">Cascading Style Sheets</a> (CSS), or the <a href="/facts/Document_Object_Model/GglE6jGx">Document Object Model</a> (DOM). While the World Wide Web Consortium maintains up-to-date central versions of some of the most important Web standards in the form of recommendations, in practice no software developer has designed a browser which adheres exactly to these standards; implementation of other standards and protocols, such as <a href="/facts/Scalable_Vector_Graphics/ARq5C3YV">SVG</a> and <a href="/facts/XMLHttpRequest/3FHofhdx">XMLHttpRequest</a>, varies as well. As a result, different browsers display the same page differently, and so browser sniffing was developed to detect the web browser in order to help ensure consistent display of content.
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Browser sniffing open-in-new

Browser sniffing