detect_browser(useragent: string, [algorithm: const string]?) -> object

Identify the browser used for a web request from its User-Agent header.

Given the contents of a web request User-Agent header string, return the platform/OS and browser/version used to make the request. The input value should not include the User-Agent: header name, only the value.

The optional second argument specifies which browser detection algorithm to use. If no specific algorithm is requested, the default is used. You can also directly request the default with the value "default". The default algorithm may change over time, you may wish to specify your desired algorithm to ensure consistent results.

The supported algorithms are:

The return value is an object with the following fields:

If the input is null, the output will be null. Otherwise, at least the platform object is returned, although the name and/or version may be null individually, depending on how much information could be extracted from the header value. The other objects are returned only if the remote user-agent matches the specifics, with most variation in os and flavor whereas browser and platform are more consistent.

Note that scripts and attacks can easily forge the User-Agent header, so this information is largely helpful when analyzing legitimate traffic, or in conjunction with other fingerprints extracted from the request.

Domain

This is a scalar function (calculates a single output value for a single input row).

Categories

• Semistructured
• String

Examples

make_col browser:detect_browser(headers['user-agent'])

Assuming there is an object input column headers with the headers from a web request, look up the header user-agent and make the column browser with information about the requester.