51Degrees UAParser

A lightweight JavaScript library wrapping 51Degrees Device Detection cloud service. The library provides comprehensive device data based on User-Agent Client Hints and/or the User-Agent. This package can be used either in a browser (client-side) or in Node.js environment (server-side). Client-side supports detection of the current client or detection from an arbitrary header map, while server-side supports detection from a header map only.

This is a fork of a popular UAParser.js library that relied solely on a deprecated User-Agent for the local device detection. The current library allows for an easy migration from the original UAParser.js.

For a more sophisticated solution, check out 51Degrees Device Detection Node Package: https://www.npmjs.com/package/fiftyone.devicedetection

Author : Roman Sertsov [email protected]
Demo : https://51degrees.github.io/ua-parser-js
Source : https://github.com/51Degrees/ua-parser-js

Documentation

Usage

You can use 51D UAParser in 3 easy steps.

Install the package using npm or other dependency manager such as yarn:

npm i @51degrees/ua-parser-js

Register and configure a Resource Key to use with 51Degrees Cloud service here - you will need it as a required parameter to pass to UAParser function.
Integrate the device detection code. Below there are usage examples for the client and server side:

Client side (HTML)

Please note the <meta http-equiv="Delegate-CH"> tag needed for the User-Agent Client Hints delegation.

<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>

    <!-- note the meta tag for User-Agent Client Hint delegation -->
    <meta http-equiv="Delegate-CH" content="Sec-CH-UA-Model https://cloud.51degrees.com; 
    Sec-CH-UA https://cloud.51degrees.com; Sec-CH-UA-Arch https://cloud.51degrees.com; 
    Sec-CH-UA-Full-Version https://cloud.51degrees.com; Sec-CH-UA-Mobile https://cloud.51degrees.com; 
    Sec-CH-UA-Platform https://cloud.51degrees.com; Sec-CH-UA-Platform-Version https://cloud.51degrees.com" />

    <script src="/path/to/@51degrees/ua-parser.min.js>"></script>

    <script type="module">  
        // note the type="module" to use the top-level await
        // this code can also live in a standalone mjs file

        // helper function:
        function formatDevice (device, sep="<br />") {
            return ["DeviceType", 
              "PlatformVendor", 
              "PlatformName", 
              "PlatformVersion", 
              "BrowserVendor", 
              "BrowserName", 
              "BrowserVersion", 
              "LayoutEngine", 
              "HardwareName", 
              "HardwareModel", 
              "HardwareVendor"]
            // note that device property names are in lower case
            .map( key => key + ": " + device[key.toLowerCase()]) 
            .join(sep)
        }


        // obtain a Resource Key at https://configure.51degrees.com/S6fGMDKw
        const rk = "<your resource key>"; 

        let result = await UAParser(rk);  // note the top-level await
        let device = result.device;
        console.log(device); 
        document.body.innerHTML = formatDevice(device);
    </script>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>

Server-side (Node.js)

This is a CommonJS example, to use a top-level await you need to use ECMAScript Modules.

An example of processing an arbitrary header map on the server:

const rk = "<your resource key>"; // obtain a Resource Key at https://configure.51degrees.com/S6fGMDKw

// an example of processing an arbitrary header map:
const context = async () => {
  const result = await UAParser(rk,{
    "sec-ch-ua":
      "Not_A Brand;v=99, Google Chrome;v=109, Chromium;v=109",
    "sec-ch-ua-arch": "x64",
    "sec-ch-ua-full-version": "109.0.5414.87",
    "sec-ch-ua-platform": "macOS",
    "sec-ch-ua-platform-version": "12.2.1",
    "user-agent":
      "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/109.0.0.0 Safari/537.36",
  })
  console.log(result.device)
}
context().then();

An example of processing client HTTP headers received by the server:

var http = require('http');
http.createServer(async function (req, res) {

  let result = await UAParser(rk,  req.headers);
  
  // a list of useful client hints to obtain from the browser
  ch = 'Sec-CH-UA, Sec-CH-UA-Arch, Sec-CH-UA-Bitness, Sec-CH-UA-Full-Version, \
        Sec-CH-UA-Full-Version-List, Sec-CH-UA-Mobile, Sec-CH-UA-Model, Sec-CH-UA-Platform, \
        Sec-CH-UA-Platform-Version, Sec-CH-UA-WoW64'

  // requesting UA-CH
  res.setHeader('Accept-CH', ch)   
  // asking the browser to do an immediate repetition of the request with the UA-CH sent, 
  // before rendering the page, so we can send a more detailed data in the response
  res.setHeader('Critical-CH',ch)  

  res.end(JSON.stringify(result.device));
})
.listen(1337, '127.0.0.1');
console.log('Server running at http://localhost:1337/');

Using TypeScript

TypeScript is supported natively, just use a regular import syntax in TS:

import UAParser from '@51degrees/ua-parser-js';

API

let result = await UAParser(resource-key[,header map])

typeof resource-key is string
typeof header map is Map

UAParser returns a Promise object that resolves to the Result object.

Resource Key is a required parameter. You must create and configure a Resource Key.

Note: Following this link to create a Resource Key will prepopulate your Key with the recommended minimum properties. The properties included are:

IsMobile
HardwareVendor
HardwareModel
HardwareName
PlatformVendor
PlatformName
PlatformVersion
LayoutEngine
BrowserVendor
BrowserName
BrowserVersion
JavascriptHardwareProfile – the Resource Key must contain the JavascriptHardwareProfile property in order to do a reliable detection of Apple devices.
DeviceType
SetHeaderBrowserAccept-CH
SetHeaderHardwareAccept-CH
SetHeaderPlatformAccept-CH

Other properties are available, but may require the purchase of a 51Degrees pricing plan. Follow this guide to create a Key from scratch if needed.

In the browser environment you don't need to pass the header map object containing either User-Agent or User-Agent Client Hints. If not passed 51D UAParser will detect the current device which is executing the script.

In the server-side environment the header map is a required parameter. You must pass User-Agent Client Hints and/or the User-Agent as part of it, or simply all headers from the request request.headers received by the server - it should contain the needed ones.

Note the await keyword. Since the 51D UAParser uses a cloud service internally, the API is inherently asynchronous.

Note that for the current client detection in the browser you must implement User-Agent Client Hints Delegation either via Permission-Policy header or <meta http-equiv="Delegate-CH"> tag.

Result object

Result object contains the device object with all the detected device properties:

result.device

51Degrees maintains the rigid data model. The device data is maintained by a professional team of data analysts and is updated daily Monday through Thursday.

Migration from original UAParser.js

The migration from the original UAParser.js comes down to the following steps:

For Node.js: replace the package name from ua-parser-js to @51degrees/ua-parser-js. For the browser provide the correct path in the src attribute to the new @51degrees/ua-parser.min.js.
Call UAParser as an async function with the await keyword, or use then to await the Promise.
Use a Resource Key to configure custom device fields. A guide to create this Key can be found here
Pass the header map containing User-Agent Client Hints headers, instead of the User-Agent string as a parameter.
For the client side / html integration - implement either Accept-CH + Permission-Policy headers on your server or Delegate-CH http-equiv meta tag in order to delegate User-Agent Client Hints to 51Degrees Cloud service as described here.

This call

    let result = UAParser([user-agent][,extension])

now becomes:

    let result = await UAParser(resource-key[,header map])

Make sure the code is running within the async context (async function) or within the ECMAScript module context where top-level await is supported.

Refrain from using the old UAParser constructor (new UAParser) - this approach has been deprecated. UAParser now returns a Promise, that must be awaited or thened - thus constructing an object does not make sense.

Deprecations

Constructor (a call to new UAParser) is no longer supported.
Methods setUA(), getUA(), and getResult() are no longer supported and will throw if called on the UAParser Promise object.

Original UAParser properties mapping

To support existing code we made an effort to map the 51Degrees data model to that of the original UAParser.js data model:

{
    ua: '',
    browser: { name: '', version: '' },
    cpu: { architecture: '' },
    device: { model: '', type: '', vendor: '' },
    engine: { name: '', version: '' },
    os: { name: '', version: '' }
}

The current library makes the best effort to map 51Degrees values to the original value ranges provided by UAParser.js to minimize breaking changes in the updated code.

New data points

Besides maintaining the mappings to the original UAParser properties, 51Degrees significantly expands the set of available data points. Data points are made available dynamically depending on the Resource Key configuration. All the data points are keyed as lower case properties within the device property of the result object, see an example result object below:

{
    ...
    device: {
        batterycapacity: 2770,
        devicetype: "SmartPhone",
        hardwaremodel: "Pixel",
        hardwarename: [
            "Pixel"
        ],
        hardwarerank: 1524,
        hardwarevendor: "Google",
        hasremovablebattery: false,
        ismobile: true,
        supportedchargertypes: [
            "Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0",
            "Wire"
        ],
        model: "Pixel",  //original property
        type: "mobile",  //original property
        vendor: "Google" //original property
    },
    ...
}

Please refer to the 51Degrees Configurator for a full list of the data points available.

User-Agent Client Hints Delegation

Migrating to User-Agent Client Hints for your web app is well described in many sources, for example, this WICG draft report on UA-CH or this human-readable article.

Any request the web browser sends contains the so-called low-entropy User-Agent Client Hints, namely these three:

Sec-CH-UA
Sec-CH-UA-Mobile
Sec-CH-UA-Platform

To request additional high-entropy UA-CH headers one must specify them in the Accept-CH header, this will tell the browser to send them in the subsequent request to the first-party server.

Accept-CH: Sec-CH-UA, Sec-CH-UA-Arch, Sec-CH-UA-Bitness, Sec-CH-UA-Full-Version, Sec-CH-UA-Full-Version-List, 
Sec-CH-UA-Mobile, Sec-CH-UA-Model, Sec-CH-UA-Platform, Sec-CH-UA-Platform-Version, Sec-CH-UA-WoW64

Then the browser will send these headers to any URL of the first-party domain, but not to the third-party domain.

In order for these headers to be sent to the third-party domain, the first-party server must also specify a Permissions-Policy header in the response. Permissions-Policy enables cross-origin User-Agent Client Hints delegation.

Since 51D UAParser just wraps calls to a third-party service hosted at https://cloud.51degrees.com, you must allow delegating hints to that service.

Here is the Permissions-Policy header that must be in your first-party server response (serving the original page content):

Permissions-Policy: ch-ua=("https://cloud.51degrees.com"), ch-ua-arch=("https://cloud.51degrees.com"),  
ch-ua-bitness=("https://cloud.51degrees.com"), ch-ua-mobile=("https://cloud.51degrees.com"), 
ch-ua-model=("https://cloud.51degrees.com"), ch-ua-platform=("https://cloud.51degrees.com"), 
ch-ua-platform-version=("https://cloud.51degrees.com"), ch-ua-full-version=("https://cloud.51degrees.com"), 
ch-ua-full-version-list=("https://cloud.51degrees.com"), ch-ua-wow64=("https://cloud.51degrees.com")

Note: Accept-CH header must also be set.

User-Agent Client Hints Delegation in HTML

Alternatively (in case you can't modify your server headers), you can provide a tag in the page header:

<meta http-equiv="Delegate-CH" content="Sec-CH-UA-Model https://cloud.51degrees.com; 
Sec-CH-UA https://cloud.51degrees.com; Sec-CH-UA-Arch https://cloud.51degrees.com; 
Sec-CH-UA-Full-Version https://cloud.51degrees.com; Sec-CH-UA-Mobile https://cloud.51degrees.com; 
Sec-CH-UA-Platform https://cloud.51degrees.com; Sec-CH-UA-Platform-Version https://cloud.51degrees.com" />

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babel.config.js		babel.config.js
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package.json		package.json
rollup.config.js		rollup.config.js
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51Degrees UAParser

Documentation

Usage

Client side (HTML)

Server-side (Node.js)

Using TypeScript

API

Result object

Migration from original UAParser.js

Deprecations

Original UAParser properties mapping

New data points

User-Agent Client Hints Delegation

User-Agent Client Hints Delegation in HTML

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51Degrees UAParser

Documentation

Usage

Client side (HTML)

Server-side (Node.js)

Using TypeScript

API

Result object

Migration from original UAParser.js

Deprecations

Original UAParser properties mapping

New data points

User-Agent Client Hints Delegation

User-Agent Client Hints Delegation in HTML

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