Detect IE version prior to v9 in JavaScript

Question

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  amp  amp      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    Yes  I know that users can forge their useragent string  I m not concerned  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  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  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

User · Answer

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    x000D   x000D  var IE version  -1   cc on   jscript version      x000D  if  IE version   -1   x000D      document write   lt h1 gt You are using Internet Explorer     IE version     lt  h1 gt     x000D    else   x000D      document write   lt h1 gt You are not using a version of Internet Explorer less than 11 lt  h1 gt     x000D    x000D   x000D   x000D    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

User · Answer

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     lt  DOCTYPE HTML gt   lt html gt   lt head gt       lt script src    code jquery com jquery-1 11 0 min js  gt  lt  script gt   lt  head gt   lt body gt       lt script gt if  navigator appVersion indexOf  Trident       -1     body   addClass  ie10    lt  script gt   lt  body gt   lt  html gt

User · Answer

This has been answered to death  but this is all you need     navigator userAgent match  msie s 5-8  i

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function getIEVersion         if   MSIE  Trident    test  navigator userAgent      false  return -1          IE  lt  9        var isIE9L   typeof   window attachEvent        function   amp  amp     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  lt  9             IE  gt   10        if navigator userAgent indexOf   Trident      gt  -1           re   new RegExp   rv   0-9  1     0-9  0                if re exec  navigator userAgent       null              return parseFloat  RegExp  1            return -1                 IE  gt   10        return -1       Check here      var ieVersion   getIEVersion     if ieVersion  lt  0         Not IE     A version of IE   Learn more about browser navigator https   developer mozilla org en-US docs Web API Window navigator

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Window runs IE10 will be auto update to IE11  and will be standardized W3C  Nowaday  we don t need to support IE8-       lt  DOCTYPE html gt       lt  -- if lt IE 9  gt  lt html class  ie ie8  gt  lt   endif -- gt       lt  -- if IE 9  gt  lt html class  ie ie9  gt  lt   endif -- gt       lt  -- if  gt IE 9    IE   gt  lt  -- gt  lt html gt  lt  -- lt   endif -- gt       lt head gt                       lt  -- if lt IE 8  gt  lt meta http-equiv  Refresh  content  0 url  error-browser html  gt  lt   endif --                  lt  head gt

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

I do like that    lt script gt     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    gt  0           alert  Shut down this junk    IE 11        else         alert  Thank god it s not IE            lt  script gt

User · Answer

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   amp  amp       parseFloat  userAgent match       rv ie                                1    lt  9         Navigate to error page

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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   lt  DOCTYPE html gt   lt  -- if lt IE 7  gt   lt html class  lt-ie9 lt-ie8 lt-ie7  gt   lt   endif -- gt   lt  -- if IE 7  gt      lt html class  lt-ie9 lt-ie8  gt   lt   endif -- gt   lt  -- if IE 8  gt      lt html class  lt-ie9  gt   lt   endif -- gt   lt  -- if gt IE 8  gt  lt  -- gt   lt html gt   lt  -- lt   endif -- gt       lt head gt    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

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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   amp  9  Owen s approach can fail on IE 5  amp  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  gt  7    IE8  IE9        ---------------------------------------------------------- var ie    function        var v   3          div   document createElement  div            all   div getElementsByTagName  i         while           div innerHTML     lt  -- if gt IE        v       gt  lt i gt  lt  i gt  lt   endif -- gt            all 0             if  v  lt   4       Check for IE gt 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  lt  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   lt 10   higher versions are more standards-compliant and it s probably better to instead check for features using something like modernizr js

User · Answer

For ie 10 and 11    You can use js and add a class in html to maintain the standard of conditional comments     var ua   navigator userAgent        doc   document documentElement     if   ua match  MSIE 10 0 i          doc className   doc className     ie10        else if  ua match  rv 11 0 i         doc className   doc className     ie11         Or use a lib like bowser   https   github com ded bowser  Or modernizr for feature detection    http   modernizr com

User · Answer

The most comprehensive JS script I found to check for versions of IE is http   www pinlady net PluginDetect IE   The entire library is at http   www pinlady net PluginDetect Browsers     With IE10  conditional statements are no longer supported   With IE11  the user agent no longer contains MSIE  Also  using the user agent is not reliable because that can be modified   Using the PluginDetect JS script  you can detect for IE and detect the exact versions by using very specific and well-crafted code that targets specific IE versions  This is very useful when you care exactly what version of browser you are working with

User · Answer

Conditional comments are no longer supported in IE as of Version 10 as noted on the Microsoft reference page    x000D   x000D  var ieDetector   function     x000D    var browser        browser object x000D   x000D        verIE  null  x000D        docModeIE  null  x000D        verIEtrue  null  x000D        verIE ua  null x000D   x000D         x000D      tmp  x000D   x000D    tmp   document documentMode  x000D    try   x000D      document documentMode       x000D      catch  e      x000D   x000D    browser isIE   typeof document documentMode     number     eval     cc on     1    x000D    try   x000D      document documentMode   tmp  x000D      catch  e      x000D   x000D       We only let IE run this code  x000D    if  browser isIE    x000D      browser verIE ua   x000D                   a-zA-Z       MSIE rv s     s   d     d   i  test navigator userAgent          x000D        parseFloat RegExp  1  10    null  x000D   x000D      var e  verTrueFloat  x  x000D        obj   document createElement  div    x000D   x000D        CLASSID     x000D            45EA75A0-A269-11D1-B5BF-0000F8051515       Internet Explorer Help x000D            3AF36230-A269-11D1-B5BF-0000F8051515       Offline Browsing Pack x000D            89820200-ECBD-11CF-8B85-00AA005B4383   x000D           x000D   x000D      try   x000D        obj style behavior    url  default clientcaps   x000D        catch  e      x000D   x000D      for  x   0  x  lt  CLASSID length  x      x000D        try   x000D          browser verIEtrue   obj getComponentVersion CLASSID x    componentid   replace    g        x000D          catch  e      x000D   x000D        if  browser verIEtrue  break  x000D   x000D         x000D      verTrueFloat   parseFloat browser verIEtrue     0   10   x000D      browser docModeIE   document documentMode    x000D           back i  test document compatMode          5   verTrueFloat     x000D        browser verIE ua  x000D      browser verIE   verTrueFloat    browser docModeIE  x000D       x000D   x000D    return   x000D      isIE  browser isIE  x000D      Version  browser verIE x000D       x000D   x000D       x000D   x000D  document write  isIE      ieDetector isIE     lt br   gt     x000D  document write  IE Version Number      ieDetector Version   x000D   x000D   x000D    then use   if  ieDetector isIE   amp  amp   ieDetector Version  lt   9

User · Answer

According to Microsoft  following is the best solution  it is also very simple   function getInternetExplorerVersion      Returns the version of Internet Explorer or a -1     indicating the use of another browser         var rv   -1     Return value assumes failure      if  navigator appName     Microsoft Internet Explorer                 var ua   navigator userAgent          var re    new RegExp  MSIE   0-9  1     0-9  0               if  re exec ua     null              rv   parseFloat  RegExp  1              return rv     function checkVersion         var msg    You re not using Internet Explorer        var ver   getInternetExplorerVersion         if   ver  gt  -1                 if   ver  gt   8 0                msg    You re using a recent copy of Internet Explorer           else             msg    You should upgrade your copy of Internet Explorer                alert  msg

User · Answer

The below codepen identifies IE version in all cases  IE lt  9  IE10  IE11 and IE Edge   function detectIE         var ua   window navigator userAgent      var msie   ua indexOf  MSIE         if  msie  gt  0               IE 10 or older   gt  return version number         return parseInt ua substring msie   5  ua indexOf      msie    10             var trident   ua indexOf  Trident         if  trident  gt  0               IE 11   gt  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  gt  0               Edge  IE 12     gt  return version number         return parseInt ua substring edge   5  ua indexOf      edge    10                other browser     return false      ref  https   codepen io gapcode pen vEJNZN

User · Answer

To reliably filter IE8 and older  checking global objects can be used   if  document all  amp  amp   document addEventListener        alert  IE8 or lower

User · Answer

Using JQuery   http   tanalin com en articles ie-version-js   Using C    var browser   Request Browser Browser

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

var isIE9OrBelow   function        return  MSIE s  test navigator userAgent   amp  amp  parseFloat navigator appVersion split  MSIE   1    lt  10

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This works for me  I use it as a redirect to a page that explains why we don t like  lt  IE9 and provide links to browsers we prefer    lt  -- if lt IE 9  gt   lt meta http-equiv  refresh  content  0 URL http   google com  gt   lt   endif -- gt

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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

User · Answer

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  amp  amp   window addEventListener            bad  IE     Legacy Internet Explorer and attachEvent  MDN

User · Answer

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     x000D   x000D    mixin   x000D    isIE  function mixed    x000D      if    isUndefined mixed     x000D        mixed    7  8  9  10  11   x000D        else if    isNumber mixed     x000D        mixed    mixed   x000D        x000D      for  var j   0  j  lt  mixed length  j      x000D        var re  x000D        switch  mixed j     x000D          case 11  x000D            re    Trident  rv  11   g  x000D            break  x000D          case 10  x000D            re    MSIE s10   g  x000D            break  x000D          case 9  x000D            re    MSIE s9   g  x000D            break  x000D          case 8  x000D            re    MSIE s8   g  x000D            break  x000D          case 7  x000D            re    MSIE s7   g  x000D            break  x000D          x000D   x000D        if    window navigator userAgent match re     x000D          return true  x000D          x000D        x000D   x000D      return false  x000D      x000D      x000D   x000D  console log   isIE     x000D  console log   isIE  7  8  9     x000D  console log   isIE 11    x000D   lt script src  https   cdnjs cloudflare com ajax libs underscore js 1 8 3 underscore-min js  gt  lt  script gt  x000D   x000D   x000D

User · Answer

if   document addEventListener           ie8   else if   window btoa           ie9      others

User · Answer

Simple solution stop thinking browser and use the year   var year   eval today getYear     if year  lt  1900     alert  Good to go  All browsers and IE 9  amp   gt      else   alert  Get with it and upgrade your IE to 9 or  gt

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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  lt  9           code for IE  lt  9

User · Answer

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    gt   0        browser    IE       ieVersion   6    if  uA indexOf  MSIE 7    gt   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   amp  amp  ieVersion  lt   9       document documentElement className      ie9-         Works in all IE versions  including higher versions in lower Compatability View Mode  and documentMode is IE proprietary

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

var Browser   new function          var self   this      var nav   navigator userAgent toLowerCase        if  nav indexOf  msie      -1            self ie                 version  toFloat nav split  msie   1                          if Browser ie  amp  amp  Browser ie version  gt  9           do something

User · Answer

Detect ie  lt   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  gt  10

User · Answer

To detect MSIE  v6 - v7 - v8 - v9 - v10 - v11  easily     if  navigator userAgent indexOf  MSIE       -1    navigator appVersion indexOf  Trident     gt  0          MSIE

User · Answer

Use conditional comments  You re trying to detect users of IE  lt  9 and conditional comments will work in those browsers  in other browsers  IE    10 and non-IE   the comments will be treated as normal HTML comments  which is what they are   Example HTML    lt  -- if lt IE 9  gt  WE DON T LIKE YOUR BROWSER  lt   endif -- gt    You can also do this purely with script  if you need   var div   document createElement  div    div innerHTML     lt  -- if lt IE 9  gt  lt i gt  lt  i gt  lt   endif -- gt    var isIeLessThan9    div getElementsByTagName  i   length    1   if  isIeLessThan9        alert  WE DON T LIKE YOUR BROWSER

User · Answer

If you need to delect IE Browser version then you can follow below code  This code working well for version IE6 to IE11    lt  DOCTYPE html gt   lt html gt   lt body gt    lt p gt Click on Try button to check IE Browser version  lt  p gt    lt button onclick  getInternetExplorerVersion    gt Try it lt  button gt    lt p id  demo  gt  lt  p gt    lt script gt  function getInternetExplorerVersion        var ua   window navigator userAgent          var msie   ua indexOf  MSIE             var rv   -1           if  msie  gt  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  gt                  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  lt  IE11                 alert parseInt ua substring msie   5  ua indexOf      msie                                return false              lt  script gt    lt  body gt   lt  html gt

User · Answer

Detect IE in JS using conditional comments     ----------------------------------------------------------    A short snippet for detecting versions of IE in JavaScript    without resorting to user-agent sniffing    ----------------------------------------------------------    If you re not in IE  or IE version is less than 5  then         ie     undefined    If you re in IE   gt  5  then you can determine which version         ie     7     IE7    Thus  to detect IE         if  ie        And to detect the version         ie     6    IE6        ie  gt  7    IE8  IE9            ie  lt  9    Anything less than IE9    ----------------------------------------------------------     UPDATE  Now using Live NodeList idea from  jdalton  var ie    function         var undef          v   3          div   document createElement  div            all   div getElementsByTagName  i         while           div innerHTML     lt  -- if gt IE        v       gt  lt i gt  lt  i gt  lt   endif -- gt            all 0              return v  gt  4   v   undef

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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     amp  amp  isIE     lt  9        is IE version less than 9   else       is IE 9 and later or not IE     or   if  isIE          is IE   else       Other browser

[javascript] Detect IE version (prior to v9) in JavaScript

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