Using the HttpBrowserCapabilities Class...

There are any number of reasons to need to know certain capabilities of your user's browser. The HttpBrowserCapabilities Class provides you with many of the properties of the user's browser allowing you to adjust your presentation accordingly

By: John Kilgo

Date: March 22, 2003

Download the code.

There are still enough differences between Internet Explorer and Netscape that you may want to load different style sheets depending upon which browser your user is using. Does the browser support cookies? That may make a difference in how you handle authentication or other issues. Which version of the browser is being used? Does it support JavaScript, or VBScript? These and many other questions can be answered by use of the HttpBrowserCapabilities Class built in to .Net.

The properties of the class that are available to you are shown in the following table.

Property Description

ActiveXControls A value indicating whether the browser supports ActiveX controls

AOL A value indicating whether the client is an AOL browser

BackgroundSounds A value indicating whether the browser supports background sounds

Beta A value indicating whether the browser is a beta release

Browser Gets the browser string that was transmitted in the User-Agent header

CDF A value indicating whether the browser supports Channel Definition Format for web casting

Cookies A value indicating whether the browser supports cookies

Crawler A value indicating whether the browser is a web crawler search engine

EcmaScriptVersion The version number of ECMA script that the browser supports

Frames A value indicating whether the browser supports HTML frames

Item Allows access to individual dictionary values. Further discussion is beyond the scope of this article

JavaApplets A value indicating whether the browser supports Java applets

JavaScript A value indicating whether the browser supports JavaScript

MajorVersion The major version number of the browser

MinorVersion The minor version number of the browser

MSDomVersion The version of Microsoft XML Document Object Model that the browser supports

Platform The name of the platform that the client uses

Tables A value indicating whether the browser supports HTML tables

Type The name and major version number of the browser

VBScript A value indicating whether the browser supports VBScript

Version The full major and minor version number of the browser

W3CdomVersion The version of the World Wide Web Consortium XML Document Object Model that the browser supports

Win16 A value indicating whether the client is a Win 16 based machine

Win32 A value indicating whether the client is a Win 32 based machine

Property	Description
ActiveXControls	A value indicating whether the browser supports ActiveX controls
AOL	A value indicating whether the client is an AOL browser
BackgroundSounds	A value indicating whether the browser supports background sounds
Beta	A value indicating whether the browser is a beta release
Browser	Gets the browser string that was transmitted in the User-Agent header
CDF	A value indicating whether the browser supports Channel Definition Format for web casting
Cookies	A value indicating whether the browser supports cookies
Crawler	A value indicating whether the browser is a web crawler search engine
EcmaScriptVersion	The version number of ECMA script that the browser supports
Frames	A value indicating whether the browser supports HTML frames
Item	Allows access to individual dictionary values. Further discussion is beyond the scope of this article
JavaApplets	A value indicating whether the browser supports Java applets
JavaScript	A value indicating whether the browser supports JavaScript
MajorVersion	The major version number of the browser
MinorVersion	The minor version number of the browser
MSDomVersion	The version of Microsoft XML Document Object Model that the browser supports
Platform	The name of the platform that the client uses
Tables	A value indicating whether the browser supports HTML tables
Type	The name and major version number of the browser
VBScript	A value indicating whether the browser supports VBScript
Version	The full major and minor version number of the browser
W3CdomVersion	The version of the World Wide Web Consortium XML Document Object Model that the browser supports
Win16	A value indicating whether the client is a Win 16 based machine
Win32	A value indicating whether the client is a Win 32 based machine

You must, of course, instantiate the HttpBrowserCapabilities class using the Request.Browser object. The instantiation takes the form
Dim bc As HttpBrowserCapabilities = Request.Browser

Below we present a little demonstration program which just lists the values of the properties of your browser if you run the demo program. The .aspx file presented below just contains a table presentation of label controls whose text values will be the corresponding property values of the HttpBrowserCapabilities object. A code-behind file shown further below instantiates the class and writes to the text properties of the various label controls.

<%@ Page Language="vb" Src="BrowserCaps.aspx.vb" Inherits="BrowserCaps"%>
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>BrowserCaps</title>
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft Visual Studio.NET 7.0">
<meta name="CODE_LANGUAGE" content="Visual Basic 7.0">
<meta name=vs_defaultClientScript content="JavaScript">
<meta name=vs_targetSchema content="http://schemas.microsoft.com/intellisense/ie5">
</head>
<body>
<div align="center">
<table border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4">
  <tr>
    <td colspan="4" bgcolor="black" align="center"><font color="white"><b>Browser Capabilities</b></font></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td bgcolor="#EEEEEE">ActiveXControls</td>
    <td><asp:Label ID="lblActiveX" Runat="server" /></td>
    <td bgcolor="#EEEEEE">AOL</td>
    <td><asp:Label ID="lblAOL" Runat="server" /></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td bgcolor="#EEEEEE">BackgroundSounds</td>
    <td><asp:Label ID="lblBackgroundSounds" Runat="server" /></td>
    <td bgcolor="#EEEEEE">Beta</td>
    <td><asp:Label ID="lblBeta" Runat="server" /></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td bgcolor="#EEEEEE">Browser</td>
    <td><asp:Label ID="lblBrowser" Runat="server" /></td>
    <td bgcolor="#EEEEEE">CDF</td>
    <td><asp:Label ID="lblCDF" Runat="server" /></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td bgcolor="#EEEEEE">Cookies</td>
    <td><asp:Label ID="lblCookies" Runat="server" /></td>
    <td bgcolor="#EEEEEE">Crawler</td>
    <td><asp:Label ID="lblCrawler" Runat="server" /></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td bgcolor="#EEEEEE">EcmaScriptVersion</td>
    <td><asp:Label ID="lblEcmaScriptVersion" Runat="server" /></td>
    <td bgcolor="#EEEEEE">Frames</td>
    <td><asp:Label ID="lblFrames" Runat="server" /></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td bgcolor="#EEEEEE">JavaApplets</td>
    <td><asp:Label ID="lblJavaApplets" Runat="server" /></td>
    <td bgcolor="#EEEEEE">JavaScript</td>
    <td><asp:Label ID="lblJavaScript" Runat="server" /></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td bgcolor="#EEEEEE">MajorVersion</td>
    <td><asp:Label ID="lblMajorVersion" Runat="server" /></td>
    <td bgcolor="#EEEEEE">MinorVersion</td>
    <td><asp:Label ID="lblMinorVersion" Runat="server" /></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td bgcolor="#EEEEEE">MSDomVersion</td>
    <td><asp:Label ID="lblMSDomVersion" Runat="server" /></td>
    <td bgcolor="#EEEEEE">Platform</td>
    <td><asp:Label ID="lblPlatform" Runat="server" /></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td bgcolor="#EEEEEE">Tables</td>
    <td><asp:Label ID="lblTables" Runat="server" /></td>
    <td bgcolor="#EEEEEE">Type</td>
    <td><asp:Label ID="lblType" Runat="server" /></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td bgcolor="#EEEEEE">VBScript</td>
    <td><asp:Label ID="lblVBScript" Runat="server" /></td>
    <td bgcolor="#EEEEEE">Version</td>
    <td><asp:Label ID="lblVersion" Runat="server" /></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td bgcolor="#EEEEEE">W3CdomVersion</td>
    <td><asp:Label ID="lblW3CdomVersion" Runat="server" /></td>
    <td bgcolor="#EEEEEE">Win16</td>
    <td><asp:Label ID="lblWin16" Runat="server" /></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td bgcolor="#EEEEEE"> </td>
    <td> </td>
    <td bgcolor="#EEEEEE">Win32</td>
    <td><asp:Label ID="lblWin32" Runat="server" /></td>
  </tr>
</table>
</div>
</body>
</html>

And finally for the code-behind file where the class is instantiated and its properties exposed. As you can see, the ToString() method is required on a few of the properties. All we are doing is displaying the properties. In actual use, you would probably be testing only a few of the properties and making logical choices in your code depending upon the values returned.

Imports System.Web.UI.WebControls
Imports System.Web

Public Class BrowserCaps : Inherits System.Web.UI.Page

  Protected lblActiveX as Label
  Protected lblAoL As Label
  Protected lblBackgroundSounds As Label
  Protected lblBeta As Label
  Protected lblBrowser As Label
  Protected lblCDF As label
  Protected lblCookies As Label
  Protected lblCrawler As Label
  Protected lblEcmaScriptVersion As Label
  Protected lblFrames As Label
  Protected lblJavaApplets As Label
  Protected lblJavaScript As Label
  Protected lblMajorVersion As Label
  Protected lblMinorVersion As Label
  Protected lblMSDomVersion As Label
  Protected lblPlatform As Label
  Protected lblTables As Label
  Protected lblType As Label
  Protected lblVBScript As Label
  Protected lblVersion As Label
  Protected lblW3CdomVersion As Label
  Protected lblWin16 As Label
  Protected lblWin32 As Label

  Private Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
    Dim bc As HttpBrowserCapabilities = Request.Browser

    lblActiveX.Text = bc.ActiveXControls
    lblAoL.Text = bc.AOL
    lblBackgroundSounds.Text = bc.BackgroundSounds
    lblBeta.Text = bc.Beta
    lblBrowser.Text = bc.Browser
    lblCDF.Text = bc.CDF
    lblCookies.Text = bc.Cookies
    lblCrawler.Text = bc.Crawler
    lblEcmaScriptVersion.Text = bc.EcmaScriptVersion.ToString()
    lblFrames.Text = bc.Frames
    lblJavaApplets.Text = bc.JavaApplets
    lblJavaScript.Text = bc.JavaScript
    lblMajorVersion.Text = bc.MajorVersion
    lblMinorVersion.Text = bc.MinorVersion
    lblMSDomVersion.Text = bc.MSDomVersion.ToString()
    lblPlatform.Text = bc.Platform
    lblTables.Text = bc.Tables
    lblType.Text = bc.Type
    lblVBScript.Text = bc.VBScript
    lblVersion.Text = bc.Version
    lblW3CdomVersion.Text = bc.W3CDomVersion.ToString()
    lblWin16.Text = bc.Win16
    lblWin32.Text = bc.Win32

  End Sub

End Class

You may download the code here.