Are we detectable yet?

10 Feb 2014

In the great tradition of [modalverb][pronoun][adjective]yet.com websites, I’ve been working on arewedetectableyet.

The basic idea is to track compatibility with major device or mobile detection frameworks/libraries/scripts, based only on a device’s user agent string.

A few things to consider:

The list of frameworks and libraries (and languages) is incomplete. If you know of a popular framwork or library that isn’t included, please open an issue (or better yet, send a pull request).

The list of browsers tested is not representative of the web at large. I’d like to include data on non-Mozilla mobile web browsers, but don’t really have the bandwidth to do so right now. Again, file an issue or send a pull request if you’d like to help with this.

Note: John David Dalton pulled me aside and gave me the “Son, I’m disappointed in you” talk. I should be clear that it’s my opinion that UA sniffing is dirty work, prone to bugs. However, I think it’s important for users to get the correct mobile content right now. We can worry about theoretical purity when we have a better standard solution. Sorry Dad.

(Special thanks to the good people at andyet for letting me steal the CSS from http://iswebrtcreadyyet.com/.)