Opera's Developer Relations Team - Are you a browser sniffer? Get your site ready for a new smell

Are you a browser sniffer? Get your site ready for a new smell

By David Storey. Tuesday, 30. December 2008, 20:37:28

Opera released an alpha of Opera 10 earlier this month. One reason for alpha releases is to find and fix potential problems and bugs. These can either be browser bugs that we have to fix or site bugs where the site’s developers need to fix. Opera 10 has uncovered a flaw in many browser sniffer scripts, that causes the script to detect Opera 10 as Opera 1. This is because they only detect the first digit of the version number. My colleague Hallvord Steen has more information in his blog post 10 is the one. I'd recommend anyone that developers web sites to download the latest alpha and check their sites for this and other potential issues, before Opera 10 goes final.

This issue has caused problems on many big sites from Microsoft Live to Bank of America. If it isn't fixed the sites will also likely stay broken for when browsers like IE 10 get released in a number of years time. Unfortunately we are the ones leading the pack into this particular issue.

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Comments

AOTEAROAnz # 30. December 2008, 21:42

FataL # 30. December 2008, 22:34

I promice you, I will never use sniffers!

Just fix finally this annoing letter spacing bug.

dstorey # 31. December 2008, 00:25

FataL: Is there a bug report on that issue?

Chas4 # 31. December 2008, 02:07

My question would be will IE even make it to version 10?

I will spread the word

FataL # 31. December 2008, 05:25

dstorey: most likely it was reported (I don't remember the bug #)
See this related forum tread.

serious # 31. December 2008, 09:55

I don't get why there is no js-object for this where a browser broadcasts its name and version. then there wouldn't be a "need" for ua-string-analysis - at least in javascript - anymore.

don't misunderstand me, browser sniffing is a bad thing - esp if it simply blocks the browser "just cause", but sometimes it is necessary to work around browser specific bugs, so there should also be a clean solution for this.

FataL # 31. December 2008, 17:47

Serious, sometimes you may try to use bug detection instead version sniffing.

FataL # 31. December 2008, 19:54

BTW, I just recalled that Opera is not a first browser with number 10 in version.
Amaya is already version 11!

Happy New Year to everyone!

serious # 31. December 2008, 20:12

@FataL: jep, that's true. but bug detection takes time and ressources (both at exectime and in production) and the decision is often to keep initial costs at a minimum - and also not having to think about making a working bug detection algorithm. well, I'm glad I'm not a webdeveloper but into java. one vm to rule them all

ps: happy new year you all. I'm outa here making my way to a party

Mickeyjoe_irl # 31. December 2008, 20:35

So what does Opera smell like

We already know IE stinks

dstorey # 1. January 2009, 18:55

It smells like… Victory

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