
Show HN: What's my browser? - zvanness
http://www.whatsmybrowser.org/
======
elsamuko
Looks nice, but please sanitize your input:

[http://www.whatsmybrowser.org/b/STOW3UD](http://www.whatsmybrowser.org/b/STOW3UD)

Also the site completely breaks if I add rare unicodes at the end of the user
agent:

🐧

~~~
VincDep
And the nice XSS!
[http://whatsmybrowser.org/b/GXVP9QT](http://whatsmybrowser.org/b/GXVP9QT)

~~~
knassy
I'm interested in what's happening here. Can you provide a link/more info on
what the XSS issue is?

(I honestly don't know and would love to learn about this. Thanks)

~~~
keeperofdakeys
From what I can see, the issue is fixed now. But simply, someone put html in
their useragent, the site copied it as text, and included it as text in the
html. The browser then interpreted it as html, and executed the javascript.

The fix is to parse inputs, and replace < and > with html entities. You can
see this fix if you read the source for the page.

------
buro9
You're asking the user to cut and paste a URL... it's still too hard.

The one we use, when we need to, is this:
[http://supportdetails.com/](http://supportdetails.com/)

All they have to do is put a recipient email address in the top, and hit "send
details", and we receive an email letting us know what they're using.

You can even pre-populate the form:

[http://supportdetails.com/?recipient=your@email.com](http://supportdetails.com/?recipient=your@email.com)

[http://supportdetails.com/?sender_name=Jessica&sender=email@...](http://supportdetails.com/?sender_name=Jessica&sender=email@sender.com&recipient=email@recipient.com)

Making it a single click function.

Although I agree with other comments in this thread, that this is something
your app should log, there are scenarios in which this type of tool is really
useful. Namely: Registration/Sign-in errors, in which it's going to be
extremely difficult to identify from log files which tuple relates to the user
having issues.

~~~
pgt
Have you considered generating a unique URL for the requester (technical
support) to share with the client, maybe with their name ini t? Once they
visit it, pull their details, store it, and email it to the requester, or add
it in their account.

~~~
buro9
It's not my site.

But it's very useful.

And we use Streak, so when we get such an email it is automatically assigned
to the bug and the CRM for that user... for free... using Streak filters.

------
brokenparser
It detects Web (Epiphany) as Chrome:
[http://whatsmybrowser.org/b/ZB74XW4](http://whatsmybrowser.org/b/ZB74XW4)

Midori as Safari:
[http://whatsmybrowser.org/b/PMWKUJZ](http://whatsmybrowser.org/b/PMWKUJZ)

Chromium as chrome:
[http://whatsmybrowser.org/b/21ULSXJ](http://whatsmybrowser.org/b/21ULSXJ)

And you might want to be more specific on Dooble and Konqueror:
[http://whatsmybrowser.org/b/W3CJIKO](http://whatsmybrowser.org/b/W3CJIKO)
[http://whatsmybrowser.org/b/IHEV8VN](http://whatsmybrowser.org/b/IHEV8VN)

Konqueror has been at major version 4 for the past 7 years or so. Also, these
operating systems are called "FreeBSD" and "Linux". "amd64" or "x86_64" is the
arch they're running on here.

~~~
krebby
I would imagine anyone using an obscure browser doesn't need a website to tell
them what they're using though.

~~~
Houshalter
Why would anyone need a website to tell them what browser they are using?

~~~
varkson
Support. I work Support and Maintenance in an web agency and if I a client
client calls up with an issue that I can't reproduce, the first question is
what browser they use. There are a lot of inconsistencies between browsers and
knowing it gives me one less thing to test with when I'm working on the issue.

------
sliverstorm
This reminds me, have any of you guys run into the "dark side" of frequent
browser updates? Couple months ago I file a support ticket on a website, they
come back and say "I see you are using Chrome 33 and Firefox 24, we only
support Chrome 27 and Firefox 19, please install those versions".

(Those were not the precise versions, but you get the idea)

------
Joeri
Reports my IE11 in modern mode as IE7.

I'm guessing it's because of the "trident" and "7.0" in the user agent:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; Trident/7.0; Touch; rv:11.0) like Gecko

I've noticed a ton of sites that misdetect IE in this way. MS's attempt to
'improve' their UA string seems to have done more harm than good.

~~~
muxxa
Here's what we use at StatCounter when compiling Global Stats data:

[http://gs.statcounter.com/detect](http://gs.statcounter.com/detect)

Can you check if that detects your IE11 correctly?

~~~
Joeri
Yes, statcounter does detect it correctly.

------
leobelle
Also:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4499435](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4499435)

[https://aboutmybrowser.com/](https://aboutmybrowser.com/)

[http://www.browser-details.com/](http://www.browser-details.com/)

------
Numberwang
As someone who uses these services in my job, I like the design a lot. A
simple url and a simple copy button is great for these things (anyone who has
done support will know what I'm talking about).

However, I get more information from whatsmybrowser.com

If someone could do a site that gives as much info as possible, including an
Internet speed tests, I think it could become very popular.

------
Theodores
IP address and GeoIP is pretty handy from a support perspective, plus anything
such as ISP that can be inferred from IP address. The whatismybrowser.com has
IP address but not the GeoIP.

More generally an embeddable 'contact us' form for people to use might be
useful if it solves problems of having to setup captcha, email and so on that
is hard to do correctly. On the back of the contact us form there could be all
the useful support gubbins so that whomever is in support dealing with the
'complaint' sent on on the contact us does not have to ask the customer to go
to some third party site to find out the browser/IP/screen size and so on.

------
dalek2point3
what the fuck? the help page says

"Google Chrome is generally considered the leader in supporting modern web
standards, and can reliably handle most modern websites. It is also one of the
fastest and most secure. "

~~~
innoying
What's your issue with that statement?

~~~
duiker101
afaik Opera is the leader in standards.

~~~
Recoil42
Opera uses Google's Blink, so that's quite the silly assertion.

------
greenyoda
See also: [http://www.whatsmyuseragent.com](http://www.whatsmyuseragent.com)

~~~
lelandbatey
For my browser diagnostic needs, I prefer
[http://ifconfig.me/](http://ifconfig.me/)

Memorable url, shows ip address, shows user agent, and much more. As an added
bonus, if you:

    
    
        curl ifconfig.me
    

It responds with just your external ip address.

~~~
scott_karana
I use the identical [http://icanhazip.com](http://icanhazip.com)

------
kalleboo
The PS Vita browser gets detected as Safari, and the URL it gives me is
invalid
[http://www.whatsmybrowser.org/b/GFWPFC0](http://www.whatsmybrowser.org/b/GFWPFC0)

------
gorhill
I have cookies disabled and yet it says "Cookies enabled: Yes". I did verify
there was no "Cookie" header sent.

What's with that?

------
tsahyt
I'm running dwb, version 2013.08.03 (either the maintainer for Fedora is
slightly lazy or there hasn't been a new version in a while) on Fedora 20. It
reports Safari 538 and OSX as the operating system. I've also got cookies
disabled and it reports that I have them enabled, which is strange.

------
xpda
When I tried Opera, it returned Chrome 31.

~~~
richtr
Sorting out user agents is one of those 'hard problems' but I thought that was
the _whole point_ of this site. This is an incredibly basic mistake.

~~~
richtr
Update: this has now been fixed.

------
JelteF
On Linux(Gentoo) it reports the resolution of my secondary monitor. Instead of
the one my browser is actually on.

~~~
rmk2
Interesting, because it does the opposite for me, i.e. it reports my primary
monitor's resolution, despite the browser running on my secondary monitor!

------
tarikozket
If you can add, Websocket and SSL tests would be awesome and are what we need.
Great design!

------
MarkTee
It says that my screen size is 1280 x 720, but it's actually 1920 x 1080.

~~~
vmarsy
Same problem here, it says 1547 x 870 whereas my real screen size is 3200 x
1800.

------
justincormack
How does it know my Java and Flash versions when I have click to play set?

~~~
Someone
Probably from JavaScript. See [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/API/NavigatorPl...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/API/NavigatorPlugins.plugins) and, from there,
[https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/API/Plugin](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/API/Plugin). Your browser cannot hide extensions from that list
because web sites might use it to decide whether to show you their plugin-
based content.

------
aaronbasssett
I prefer [http://supportdetails.com/](http://supportdetails.com/) makes it
easy for the customer to email me their details.

------
Nanzikambe
I realise this is to assist with support, but why would anyone other than the
owner of this site use it when they could just pull the user agent from their
own logs when/if there's a need?

Every webapp I've ever written logs user agent in the audit trail because
that's often useful both in support and detecting unwanted stuff. I'd have to
assume that's a fairly common practise.

Barring an obvious use case I'm missing, it feels like a poorly written
version of www.mybrowserinfo.com dressed up the theme de jour, minus the
detail.

~~~
thucydides
When I'm talking to my clients, it's so much easier to tell them to use to a
site like this.

Them: "When I click the button, the menu shows up. But it disappears as soon
as I hover over it.

Me: "What browser do you have?"

Them: "Google, I think."

Me: "Let's make sure. Could you go to whatbrowser.org and tell me what it
says?"

Much simpler than having to fish through logs.

~~~
Nanzikambe
Them: "When I click the button, the menu shows up. But it disappears as soon
as I hover over it"

Me: What's your username?

Them: jdoe@somehost.com

    
    
      $ mysql -e "SELECT useragent FROM login_audit WHERE user = 'jdoe@somehost.com'"
      +---------------------------------------------------+
      | useragent                                         |
      +---------------------------------------------------+
      | Mozilla/1.22 (compatible; MSIE 2.0; Windows 3.1)  |
      +---------------------------------------------------+
    
    

Me: _thumping noises on wood_

Them: Yes?

    
    
      $ mysql -e "DELETE FROM users WHERE user = 'jdoe@somehost.com'"
    

Me: Problem resolved, goodbye.

(Admittedly this is probably why they don't let me do support, but the point
remains, it's trivial and you should have this info.)

~~~
prawn
And for someone doing basic support who doesn't or shouldn't have access to
the database? These sites make that sort of thing easy.

~~~
Kluny
A great job to give an intern is to get them to write a nice front-end for
support techs to use. Then get a manager in training to audit the code.

~~~
Morgawr
Or just use the site linked in the OP

------
cridenour
On a retina screen, it reports the wrong resolution. Not sure if you can get
density from the browser, but just thought I would let you know!

~~~
brianpgordon
I noticed this as well. OP can detect it using window.devicePixelRatio on
WebKit:

[http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2012/06/devicepixelr...](http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2012/06/devicepixelrati.html)

------
exodust
_" Color depth: 24 bit"_

Ah, now there's your problem!

Seriously, no support person is ever going to need this information.

~~~
mschuster91
Oh indeed. Manage to kill off your graphics driver and be unlucky enough that
Windows reverts to VESA.

Or, alternately, have some stupid game change to other color depths (I'm
looking at you UT), switch via Alt-Tab and kaboom.

------
vezzy-fnord
It's a very basic service, but the UI is more hip, I guess.

It doesn't detect LightSpark as a Flash version.

~~~
_RPM
It's bootstrap

------
reidrac
"Browser size" made me chuckle. I would say "Browser window size" instead :)

------
untitaker_
This shows "Mobile Firefox Mobile", which is correct but obviously badly
phrased.

------
asjo
The website doesn't work with my trusty Mosaic 2.7b5.

------
oniTony
Right now.

> Share this now with your support team now!

