How can I detect Internet Explorer (IE) and Microsoft Edge using JavaScript?

Javascript Html Internet Explorer Media Queries Microsoft Edge

Javascript Problem Overview

I've looked around a lot, and I understand that there's a lot of ways to detect internet explorer.

My problem is this: I have an area on my HTML document, that when clicked, calls a JavaScript function that is incompatible with internet explorer of any kind. I want to detect if IE is being used, and if so, set the variable to true.

The problem is, I am writing my code out of Notepad++, and when I run the HTML code in browser, none of the methods for detecting IE work. I think the problem is that I am running it out of Notepad++. I need to be able to detect IE, so that based on the variable, I can disable that area of the site. I have tried this:

var isIE10 = false;

if (navigator.userAgent.indexOf("MSIE 10") > -1) {
    // this is internet explorer 10
    isIE10 = true;
   window.alert(isIE10);
}

var isIE = (navigator.userAgent.indexOf("MSIE") != -1);

if(isIE){
    if(!isIE10){
    window.location = 'pages/core/ie.htm';
    }
}

but it doesn't work. How can I detect IE out of Notepad++? That's what I'm testing the HTML out of, but I need a method that'll work with that.

edit

I noticed someone has marked this as a duplicate, and that is understandable. I suppose I was not clear. I cannot use a JQuery answer, so this is not a duplicate as I am asking for a vanilla JS answer.

Edit #2

Is there also a way to detect the Microsoft Edge browser?

Javascript Solutions

Solution 1 - Javascript

Here is the latest correct way that I know of how to check for IE and Edge:

if (/MSIE 10/i.test(navigator.userAgent)) {
   // This is internet explorer 10
   window.alert('isIE10');
}

if (/MSIE 9/i.test(navigator.userAgent) || /rv:11.0/i.test(navigator.userAgent)) {
    // This is internet explorer 9 or 11
    window.location = 'pages/core/ie.htm';
}

if (/Edge\/\d./i.test(navigator.userAgent)){
   // This is Microsoft Edge
   window.alert('Microsoft Edge');
}

Note that you don't need the extra var isIE10 in your code because it does very specific checks now.

Also check out this page for the latest IE and Edge user agent strings because this answer may become outdated at some point: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh869301%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

Solution 2 - Javascript

// detect IE8 and above, and Edge
if (document.documentMode || /Edge/.test(navigator.userAgent)) {
    ... do something
}

Explanation:

document.documentMode

An IE only property, first available in IE8.

/Edge/

A regular expression to search for the string 'Edge' - which we then test against the 'navigator.userAgent' property

Update Mar 2020

@Jam comments that the latest version of Edge now reports Edg as the user agent. So the check would be:

if (document.documentMode || /Edge/.test(navigator.userAgent) || /Edg/.test(navigator.userAgent)) {
    ... do something
}

Solution 3 - Javascript

I don't know why, but I'm not seeing "Edge" in the userAgent like everyone else is talking about, so I had to take another route that may help some people.

Instead of looking at the navigator.userAgent, I looked at navigator.appName to distinguish if it was IE<=10 or IE11 and Edge. IE11 and Edge use the appName of "Netscape", while every other iteration uses "Microsoft Internet Explorer".

After we determine that the browser is either IE11 or Edge, I then looked to navigator.appVersion. I noticed that in IE11 the string was rather long with a lot of information inside of it. I arbitrarily picked out the word "Trident", which is definitely not in the navigator.appVersion for Edge. Testing for this word allowed me to distinguish the two.

Below is a function that will return a numerical value of which Internet Explorer the user is on. If on Microsoft Edge it returns the number 12.

Good luck and I hope this helps!

function Check_Version(){
	var rv = -1; // Return value assumes failure.

	if (navigator.appName == 'Microsoft Internet Explorer'){

	   var ua = navigator.userAgent,
           re  = new RegExp("MSIE ([0-9]{1,}[\\.0-9]{0,})");

       if (re.exec(ua) !== null){
         rv = parseFloat( RegExp.$1 );
       }
	}
	else if(navigator.appName == "Netscape"){  			  			
	   /// in IE 11 the navigator.appVersion says 'trident'
	   /// in Edge the navigator.appVersion does not say trident
	   if(navigator.appVersion.indexOf('Trident') === -1) rv = 12;
	   else rv = 11;
	}  		

	return rv;			
}

Solution 4 - Javascript

I'm using UAParser https://github.com/faisalman/ua-parser-js

var a = new UAParser();
var name = a.getResult().browser.name;
var version = a.getResult().browser.version;

Solution 5 - Javascript

Topic is a bit old, but since the scripts here detect Firefox as a False Positive (EDGE v12), here is the version I use:

function isIEorEDGE(){
  if (navigator.appName == 'Microsoft Internet Explorer'){
    return true; // IE
  }
  else if(navigator.appName == "Netscape"){                       
     return navigator.userAgent.indexOf('.NET') > -1; // Only Edge uses .NET libraries
  }       

  return false;
}

which of course can be written in a more concise way:

function isIEorEDGE(){
  return navigator.appName == 'Microsoft Internet Explorer' || (navigator.appName == "Netscape" && navigator.userAgent.indexOf('.NET') > -1);
}

Solution 6 - Javascript

This function worked perfectly for me. It detects Edge as well.

Originally from this Codepen:

https://codepen.io/gapcode/pen/vEJNZN

/**
 * detect IE
 * returns version of IE or false, if browser is not Internet Explorer
 */
function detectIE() {
  var ua = window.navigator.userAgent;

  // Test values; Uncomment to check result …

  // 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 (Spartan)
  // 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 msie = ua.indexOf('MSIE ');
  if (msie > 0) {
    // IE 10 or older => return version number
    return parseInt(ua.substring(msie + 5, ua.indexOf('.', msie)), 10);
  }

  var trident = ua.indexOf('Trident/');
  if (trident > 0) {
    // IE 11 => 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 > 0) {
    // Edge (IE 12+) => return version number
    return parseInt(ua.substring(edge + 5, ua.indexOf('.', edge)), 10);
  }

  // other browser
  return false;
}

Then you can use if (detectIE()) { /* do IE stuff */ } in your code.

Solution 7 - Javascript

If you just want to give users using a MS browser a warning or something, this code should be good.

HTML:

<p id="IE">You are not using a microsoft browser</p>

Javascript:

using_ms_browser = navigator.appName == 'Microsoft Internet Explorer' || (navigator.appName == "Netscape" && navigator.appVersion.indexOf('Edge') > -1) || (navigator.appName == "Netscape" && navigator.appVersion.indexOf('Trident') > -1);

if (using_ms_browser == true){
    document.getElementById('IE').innerHTML = "You are using a MS browser"
}

Thanks to @GavinoGrifoni

Solution 8 - Javascript

For me better this:

var uA = window.navigator.userAgent,
    onlyIEorEdge = /msie\s|trident\/|edge\//i.test(uA) && !!( document.uniqueID || window.MSInputMethodContext),
    checkVersion = (onlyIEorEdge && +(/(edge\/|rv:|msie\s)([\d.]+)/i.exec(uA)[2])) || NaN;

Go run: http://output.jsbin.com/solicul/1/ o http://jsfiddle.net/Webnewbie/apa1nvu8/

Solution 9 - Javascript

Use this snip : var IE = (navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Edge") > -1 || navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Trident/7.0") > -1) ? true : false;

Solution 10 - Javascript

One line code to detect the browser.

If the browser is IE or Edge, It will return true;

let isIE = /edge|msie\s|trident\//i.test(window.navigator.userAgent)

Solution 11 - Javascript

Here is a javascript class that detects IE10, IE11 and Edge.
Navigator object is injected for testing purposes.

var DeviceHelper = function (_navigator) {
    this.navigator = _navigator || navigator;
};
DeviceHelper.prototype.isIE = function() {
    if(!this.navigator.userAgent) {
        return false;
    }

    var IE10 = Boolean(this.navigator.userAgent.match(/(MSIE)/i)),
        IE11 = Boolean(this.navigator.userAgent.match(/(Trident)/i));
    return IE10 || IE11;
};

DeviceHelper.prototype.isEdge = function() {
    return !!this.navigator.userAgent && this.navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Edge") > -1;
};

DeviceHelper.prototype.isMicrosoftBrowser = function() {
    return this.isEdge() || this.isIE();
};

Solution 12 - Javascript

If we need to check Edge please go head with this

if(navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Edge") > 1 ){

//do something

}

Solution 13 - Javascript

First of all its not the Notepad++ problem for sure. Its your "String Matching problem"

The common string throughout all IE version is MSIE Check out the various userAgent strings at http://www.useragentstring.com/pages/Internet%20Explorer/

if(navigator.userAgent.indexOf("MSIE") != -1){
   alert('I am Internet Explorer!!');
}

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	user5171952	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Javascript	Sceptic	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Javascript	Chris Halcrow	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Javascript	skribbz14	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Javascript	Oren Gal	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - Javascript	GavinoGrifoni	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - Javascript	phocks	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 7 - Javascript	patchie	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 8 - Javascript	James Peter	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 9 - Javascript	Amin AmiriDarban	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 10 - Javascript	shulha yahya	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 11 - Javascript	Tomás	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 12 - Javascript	prasanth pr	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 13 - Javascript	Amit Prabhu Parrikar	View Answer on Stackoverflow