166

Can you please let me know how to get the browser's name that the client is using in MVC 6, ASP.NET 5?

Grigory Zhadko
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eadam
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  • [Browser detection using the user agent](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Browser_detection_using_the_user_agent) – Hans Kesting Mar 13 '23 at 11:12

8 Answers8

255

I think this was an easy one. Got the answer in Request.Headers["User-Agent"].ToString()

Mehdi Dehghani
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eadam
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52

For me Request.Headers["User-Agent"].ToString() did't help cause returning all browsers names so found following solution.

Installed ua-parse.

In controller using UAParser;

var userAgent = HttpContext.Request.Headers["User-Agent"];
var uaParser = Parser.GetDefault();
ClientInfo c = uaParser.Parse(userAgent);

after using above code was able to get browser details from userAgent by using c.UA.Family + " " + c.UA.Major +"." + c.UA.Minor You can also get OS details like c.OS.Family;

Where c.UA.Major is a browser major version and c.UA.Minor is a browser minor version.

JGH
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Aneeq Azam Khan
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22
userAgent = Request.Headers["User-Agent"]; 

https://code.msdn.microsoft.com/How-to-get-OS-and-browser-c007dbf7 (link not live) go for 4.8

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.web.httprequest.useragent?view=netframework-4.8

Uzay
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  • That link is the best answer. The User-Agent string is a string that you have to decipher and parse to get version information. The classes supplied there do all the hard-work. – JustLooking Apr 10 '19 at 17:06
  • This answer is for .NET Framework, not .NET Core – Alex from Jitbit Aug 26 '21 at 08:58
  • I have a web app and about 95% of users send back a user agent. However, the rest do not. These are not bots because the users are making paid bookings. Can anyone explain why user agent would be null? Most users are on mobile devices. Are there some browsers not returning ua? – Norbert Norbertson Mar 28 '22 at 10:39
11

I have developed a library to extend ASP.NET Core to support web client browser information detection at Wangkanai.Detection This should let you identity the browser name.

namespace Wangkanai.Detection
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Provides the APIs for query client access device.
    /// </summary>
    public class DetectionService : IDetectionService
    {
        public HttpContext Context { get; }
        public IUserAgent UserAgent { get; }

        public DetectionService(IServiceProvider services)
        {
            if (services == null) throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(services));

            this.Context = services.GetRequiredService<IHttpContextAccessor>().HttpContext;
            this.UserAgent = CreateUserAgent(this.Context);
        }

        private IUserAgent CreateUserAgent(HttpContext context)
        {
            if (context == null) throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(Context)); 

            return new UserAgent(Context.Request.Headers["User-Agent"].FirstOrDefault());
        }
    }
}
1

Install this .nuget package

create a class like this:

public static class YauaaSingleton
    {
        private static UserAgentAnalyzer.UserAgentAnalyzerBuilder Builder { get; }

        private static UserAgentAnalyzer analyzer = null;

        public static UserAgentAnalyzer Analyzer
        {
            get
            {
                if (analyzer == null)
                {
                    analyzer = Builder.Build();
                }
                return analyzer;
            }
        }

        static YauaaSingleton()
        {
            Builder = UserAgentAnalyzer.NewBuilder();
            Builder.DropTests();
            Builder.DelayInitialization();
            Builder.WithCache(100);
            Builder.HideMatcherLoadStats();
            Builder.WithAllFields();
        }


    }

in your controller you can read the user agent from http headers:

string userAgent = Request.Headers?.FirstOrDefault(s => s.Key.ToLower() == "user-agent").Value;

Then you can parse the user agent:

 var ua = YauaaSingleton.Analyzer.Parse(userAgent );

 var browserName = ua.Get(UserAgent.AGENT_NAME).GetValue();

you can also get the confidence level (higher is better):

 var confidence = ua.Get(UserAgent.AGENT_NAME).GetConfidence();
Stefano Balzarotti
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0

In production application it is important to check first if user agent exists.

public static string GetUserAgent(this HttpContext context)
{
    if (context.Request.Headers.TryGetValue(HeaderNames.UserAgent, out var userAgent))
    {
        return userAgent.ToString();
    }
    return "Not found";
}
Deivydas Voroneckis
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0
var userAgent = $"{this.Request?.HttpContext?.Request?.Headers["user-agent"]}";
Joseph Wambura
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0

If you are using .net 6 or later it looks like there is a property you can use. So if you are in a controller you can access it like this:

var userAgent = HttpContext.Request.Headers.UserAgent;

Or if you are not in a controller you can inject an implmentation of IHttpContextAccessor and access for example like this

using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http;

public class MyClass
{
    public MyClass(IHttpContextAccessor httpContextAccessor)
    {
          _httpContextAccessor = httpContextAccessor;   
    }

    public string? GetUserAgent()
    {
        return _httpContextAccessor?.HttpContext?.Request.Headers.UserAgent;
    }
}

Note in you will need to register IHttpContextAccessor by adding the following in your program.cs or startup.cs by adding this line of code

services.AddHttpContextAccessor();
Dave Barnett
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