uasurfer

User Agent Surfer (uasurfer) is a lightweight Golang package that parses and abstracts HTTP User-Agent strings with particular attention to device type.

The following information is returned by uasurfer from a raw HTTP User-Agent string:

Name	Example	Coverage in 192,792 parses
Browser name	chrome	99.85%
Browser version	53	99.17%
Platform	ipad	99.97%
OS name	ios	99.96%
OS version	10	98.81%
Device type	tablet	99.98%

Layout engine, browser language, and other esoteric attributes are not parsed.

Coverage is estimated from a random sample of real UA strings collected across thousands of sources in US and EU mid-2016.

Usage

Parse(ua string) Function

The Parse() function accepts a user agent string and returns UserAgent struct with named constants and integers for versions (minor, major and patch separately), and the full UA string that was parsed (lowercase). A string can be retrieved by adding .String() to a variable, such as uasurfer.BrowserName.String().

// Define a user agent string
myUA := "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_10_5) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/45.0.2454.85 Safari/537.36"

// Parse() returns all attributes, including returning the full UA string last
ua, uaString := uasurfer.Parse(myUA)

where example UserAgent is:

{
    Browser {
        BrowserName: BrowserChrome,
        Version: {
            Major: 45,
            Minor: 0,
            Patch: 2454,
        },
    },
    OS {
        Platform: PlatformMac,
        Name: OSMacOSX,
        Version: {
            Major: 10,
            Minor: 10,
            Patch: 5,
        },
    },
    DeviceType: DeviceComputer,
}

Usage note: There are some OSes that do not return a version, see docs below. Linux is typically not reported with a specific Linux distro name or version.

Browser Name

• BrowserChrome - Google Chrome, Chromium
• BrowserSafari - Apple Safari, Google Search (GSA)
• BrowserIE - Microsoft Internet Explorer, Edge
• BrowserFirefox - Mozilla Firefox, GNU IceCat, Iceweasel, Seamonkey
• BrowserAndroid - Android WebView (Android OS <4.4 only)
• BrowserOpera - Opera
• BrowserUCBrowser - UC Browser
• BrowserSilk - Amazon Silk
• BrowserSpotify - Spotify desktop client
• BrowserBlackberry - RIM BlackBerry
• BrowserUnknown - Unknown

Browser Version

Browser version returns an unint8 of the major version attribute of the User-Agent String. For example Chrome 45.0.23423 would return 45. The intention is to support math operators with versions, such as "do XYZ for Chrome version >23".

Unknown version is returned as 0.

Platform

• PlatformWindows - Microsoft Windows
• PlatformMac - Apple Macintosh
• PlatformLinux - Linux, including Android and other OSes
• PlatformiPad - Apple iPad
• PlatformiPhone - Apple iPhone
• PlatformBlackberry - RIM Blackberry
• PlatformWindowsPhone Microsoft Windows Phone & Mobile
• PlatformKindle - Amazon Kindle & Kindle Fire
• PlatformPlaystation - Sony Playstation, Vita, PSP
• PlatformXbox - Microsoft Xbox - PlatformXbox
• PlatformNintendo - Nintendo DS, Wii, etc.
• PlatformUnknown - Unknown

OS Name

• OSWindows
• OSMacOSX - includes "macOS Sierra"
• OSiOS
• OSAndroid
• OSChromeOS
• OSWebOS
• OSLinux
• OSPlaystation
• OSXbox
• OSNintendo
• OSUnknown

OS Version

OS X major version is alway 10 with consecutive minor versions indicating release releases (10 - Yosemite, 11 - El Capitain, 12 Sierra, etc). Windows version is NT version. Version{0, 0, 0} indicated version is unknown or not evaluated. Versions can be compared using Less function: if ver1.Less(ver2) {}

Here are some examples across the platform, os.name, and os.version:

• For Windows XP (Windows NT 5.1), "PlatformWindows" is the platform, "OSWindows" is the name, and {5, 1, 0} the version.
• For OS X 10.5.1, "PlatformMac" is the platform, "OSMacOSX" the name, and {10, 5, 1} the version.
• For Android 5.1, "PlatformLinux" is the platform, "OSAndroid" is the name, and {5, 1, 0} the version.
• For iOS 5.1, "PlatformiPhone" or "PlatformiPad" is the platform, "OSiOS" is the name, and {5, 1, 0} the version.

Windows Version Guide

• Windows 10 - {10, 0, 0}
• Windows 8.1 - {6, 3, 0}
• Windows 8 - {6, 2, 0}
• Windows 7 - {6, 1, 0}
• Windows Vista - {6, 0, 0}
• Windows XP - {5, 1, 0} or {5, 2, 0}
• Windows 2000 - {5, 0, 0}

Windows 95, 98, and ME represent 0.01% of traffic worldwide and are not available through this package at this time.

DeviceType

DeviceType is typically quite accurate, though determining between phones and tablets on Android is not always possible due to how some vendors design their UA strings. A mobile Android device without tablet indicator defaults to being classified as a phone. DeviceTV supports major brands such as Philips, Sharp, Vizio and steaming boxes such as Apple, Google, Roku, Amazon.

• DeviceComputer
• DevicePhone
• DeviceTablet
• DeviceTV
• DeviceConsole
• DeviceWearable
• DeviceUnknown

Example Combinations of Attributes

• Surface RT -> OSWindows8, DeviceTablet, OSVersion >= 6
• Android Tablet -> OSAndroid, DeviceTablet
• Microsoft Edge -> BrowserIE, BrowserVersion >= 12.0.0

To do

• Remove compiled regexp in favor of string.Contains wherever possible (lowers mem/alloc)
• Better version support on Firefox derivatives (e.g. SeaMonkey)
• Potential additional browser support:
• "NetFront" (1% share in India)
• "QQ Browser" (6.5% share in China)
• "Sogou Explorer" (5% share in China)
• "Maxthon" (1.5% share in China)
• "Nokia"
• Potential additional OS support:
• "Nokia" (5% share in India)
• "Series 40" (5.5% share in India)
• Windows 2003 Server
• iOS safari browser identification based on iOS version
• Add android version to browser identification
• old Macs
• "opera/9.64 (macintosh; ppc mac os x; u; en) presto/2.1.1"
• old Windows
• "mozilla/5.0 (windows nt 4.0; wow64) applewebkit/537.36 (khtml, like gecko) chrome/37.0.2049.0 safari/537.36"