JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, 6th Edition

Name

Navigator — information about the web browser

Synopsis

The Navigator object contains properties that describe the web browser your code is running in. You can use its properties to perform platform-specific customization. The name of this object is a reference to the Netscape Navigator browser, but all browsers support it. There is only a single instance of the Navigator object, which you can reference through the navigator property of any Window object.

Historically, the Navigator object has been used for “client sniffing,” to run different code depending on what browser was in use. Example 14-3 shows a simple way to do this, and the accompanying text in Browser and Screen Information describes the pitfalls of relying on the Navigator object. A better approach to cross-browser compatibility is described in Feature Testing.

Properties

readonly string appName

The name of the browser. For Netscape-based browsers, the value of this property is “Netscape”. In IE, the value of this property is “Microsoft Internet Explorer”. For compatibility with existing code, many browsers return old, spoofed information.

readonly string appVersion

Version and platform information for the browser. For compatibility with existing code, most browsers return old out-of-date values for this property.

readonly Geolocation geolocation

A reference to the Geolocation object for this browser. The methods of that object allow a script to request the current geographical location of the user.

readonly boolean onLine ...