Interesting Browser Detection

Often, I need to change the way I apply some CSS due to the different box models that browsers employ. Some include padding, some borders, some other stuff in their calculations of widths during their layout phase. I stumbled across this interesting way of detecting the browser that the visitor to your site has decided to use.

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(function() {
  var htmlElementName = Object.prototype.toString.call(window.HTMLElement);

  isIE8      = htmlElementName === '[object Object]';
  isFF13     = htmlElementName === '[object DOMPrototype]';
  isChrome19 = htmlElementName === '[object Function]';
  isSafari5  = htmlElementName === '[object HTMLElementConstructor]';
})();

Neat, eh?

I put the version numbers on those isXXX variables because those’re the versions that I used to test those values. They might work for other versions, too.

If you use this trick and find a different value or even the same value, then please post your discovery on this page and we can compile a list of very easy-to-use tests for browser detection!