How do I detect IE 8 with jQuery?

Javascript Problem Overview

I need to detect not only the browser type but version as well using jQuery. Mostly I need to find out if it is IE 8 or not.

I am not sure if I am doing it correctly.

If I do :

if (jQuery.browser.version >= 8.0) {
dosomething}

I am not sure it will work for version 8.123.45.6 or will it?

Edit: Note that JQuery 2+ has dropped support for IE8 and below, and therefore can no longer be used to detect IE8. If using a current version of JQuery, it is necessary to use a Non-JQuery solution.

Javascript Solutions

Solution 1 - Javascript

I think the best way would be this:

From HTML5 boilerplate:

<!--[if lt IE 7]> <html lang="en-us" class="no-js ie6 oldie"> <![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 7]>    <html lang="en-us" class="no-js ie7 oldie"> <![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 8]>    <html lang="en-us" class="no-js ie8 oldie"> <![endif]-->
<!--[if gt IE 8]><!--> <html lang="en-us" class="no-js"> <!--<![endif]-->

in JS:

if( $("html").hasClass("ie8") ) { /* do your things */ };

especially since $.browser has been removed from jQuery 1.9+.

Solution 2 - Javascript

This should work for all IE8 minor versions

if ($.browser.msie  && parseInt($.browser.version, 10) === 8) {
  alert('IE8'); 
} else {
  alert('Non IE8');
}

-- update

Please note that $.browser is removed from jQuery 1.9

Solution 3 - Javascript

It is documented in jQuery API Documentation. Check for Internet Explorer with $.browser.msie and then check its version with $.browser.version.

UPDATE: $.browser removed in jQuery 1.9

> The jQuery.browser() method has been deprecated since jQuery 1.3 and is removed in 1.9. If needed, it is available as part of the jQuery Migrate plugin. We recommend using feature detection with a library such as Modernizr.

Solution 4 - Javascript

Don't forget that you can also use HTML to detect IE8.

<!--[if IE 8]>
<script type="text/javascript">
    ie = 8;
</script>
<![endif]-->

Having that before all your scripts will let you just check the "ie" variable or whatever.

Solution 5 - Javascript

document.documentMode is undefined if the browser is not IE8,

it returns 8 for standards mode and 7 for 'compatable to IE7'

If it is running as IE7 there are a lot of css and dom features that won't be supported.

Solution 6 - Javascript

Assuming...

...that it's the crunky rendering engine of old versions of IE you're interested in detecting, to make a style look right in old IE (otherwise, use feature detection)
...that you can't just add conditional comments to the HTML - e.g. for JS plugins that can be applied to any page (otherwise, just do the trick of conditional classes on <body> or <html>)

...then this is probably the best trick (based on this non-jQuery, slightly less flexible variant). It creates then tests for then removes an appropriate conditional comment.

(Conditional comments are ignored in IE10+ 'standards mode' - but that should be fine since IE10+ 'standards mode' doesn't have a crazy rendering engine!)

Drop in this function:

function isIE( version, comparison ){
	var $div = $('<div style="display:none;"/>');

    // Don't chain these, in IE8 chaining stops some versions of jQuery writing the conditional comment properly
    $div.appendTo($('body'));
	$div.html('<!--[if '+(comparison||'')+' IE '+(version||'')+']><a>&nbsp;</a><![endif]-->');

	var ieTest = $div.find('a').length;
	$div.remove();
	return ieTest;
}

Then use it like this:

if(isIE()){ /* runs in all versions of IE after 4 before standards-mode 10 */ }

if(isIE(8)){ /* runs in IE8 */ }

if(isIE(9)){ /* runs in IE9 */ }

if(isIE(8,'lte')){ /* runs in IE8 or below */ }

if(isIE(6,'lte')){ /* if you need this, I pity you... */ }

I'd also suggest caching the results of this function so you don't have to repeat it. For example, you could use the string (comparison||'')+' IE '+(version||'') as a key to store and check for the result of this test in an object somewhere.

Solution 7 - Javascript

Note:

$.browser appears to be dropped in jQuery 1.9+ (as noted by Mandeep Jain). It is recommended to use .support instead.
$.browser.version can return "7" in IE >7 when the browser is in "compatibility" mode.
As of IE 10, conditional comments will no longer work.
jQuery 2.0+ will drop support for IE 6/7/8
document.documentMode appears to be defined only in Internet Explorer 8+ browsers. The value returned will tell you in what "compatibility" mode Internet Explorer is running. Still not a good solution though.

I tried numerous .support() options, but it appears that when an IE browser (9+) is in compatibility mode, it will simply behave like IE 7 ... :(

So far I only found this to work (kind-a):

(if documentMode is not defined and htmlSerialize and opacity are not supported, then you're very likely looking at IE <8 ...)

if(!document.documentMode && !$.support.htmlSerialize && !$.support.opacity) 
{
    // IE 6/7 code
}

Solution 8 - Javascript

If you fiddle with browser versions it leads to no good very often. You don't want to implement it by yourself. But you can Modernizr made by Paul Irish and other smart folks. It will detect what the browser actually can do and put apropriate classes in <html> element. However with Modernizr, you can test IE version like this:

$('html.lt-ie9').each() {
    // this will execute if browser is IE 8 or less
}

Similary, you can use .lt-ie8, and .lt-ie7.

Solution 9 - Javascript

You should also look at jQuery.support. Feature detection is a lot more reliable than browser detection for coding your functionality (unless you are just trying to log browser versions).

Solution 10 - Javascript

You can easily detect which type and version of the browser, using this jquery

$(document).ready(function()
{
 if ( $.browser.msie ){
    if($.browser.version == '6.0')
    {   $('html').addClass('ie6');
    }
    else if($.browser.version == '7.0')
    {   $('html').addClass('ie7');
    }
    else if($.browser.version == '8.0')
    {   $('html').addClass('ie8');
    }
    else if($.browser.version == '9.0')
    {   $('html').addClass('ie9');
    }
 }
 else if ( $.browser.webkit )
 { $('html').addClass('webkit');
 }
 else if ( $.browser.mozilla )
 { $('html').addClass('mozilla');
 }
 else if ( $.browser.opera )
 { $('html').addClass('opera');
 }
});

Solution 11 - Javascript

Here is the Jquery browser detect plugin to identify browser/os detection.

You can use this for styling purpose after including the plugin.

$("html").addClass($.os.name);
$("body").addClass($.browser.className);
$("body").addClass($.browser.name);

Solution 12 - Javascript

You can use $.browser to detect the browser name. possible values are :

webkit (as of jQuery 1.4)
safari (deprecated)
opera
msie
mozilla

or get a boolean flag: $.browser.msie will be true if the browser is MSIE.

as for the version number, if you are only interested in the major release number - you can use parseInt($.browser.version, 10). no need to parse the $.browser.version string yourself.

Anyway, The $.support property is available for detection of support for particular features rather than relying on $.browser.

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	salmane	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Javascript	meo	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Javascript	Mithun Sreedharan	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Javascript	AndiDog	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Javascript	TheBuzzSaw	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - Javascript	kennebec	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - Javascript	user56reinstatemonica8	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 7 - Javascript	Hanzaplastique	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 8 - Javascript	koubic	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 9 - Javascript	jkyle	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 10 - Javascript	Sanooj	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 11 - Javascript	Aravind Vel	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 12 - Javascript	Yonatan Betzer	View Answer on Stackoverflow