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Mozilla

String

Required? Description

Prerelease Version

The version of the open source Mozilla code base

being used in this browser.

Note:

This was not used

until Mozilla 0.9.2 (Netscape 6.1).

Optional Other Comments

This is space for custom implementations of Mozilla to

add in additional information.

GeckoVersion

Yes

The version of the Gecko rendering engine being used.

This is a date in the format

yyyymmdd

Application Product

The name of the branded browser using the Mozilla

code. In Netscape 6 releases, this is Netscape6;

Netscape 7 changed it to just Netscape.

Application Product Version

The version of the branded browser using the Mozilla

code.

In order to fully understand exactly what is going on, take a look at an example from Netscape 6.2.1 run-

ning on Windows XP:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:0.9.4) Gecko/20011128

Netscape6/6.2.1

Matching up the various pieces of information:

MozillaVersion is

5.0

Platform is

Windows

Security is

OS-or-CPU is

Windows NT 5.1

Localization information is

en-US

PrereleaseVersion is

rv:0.9.4

GeckoVersion is

20011128

ApplicationProduct is

Netscape 6

ApplicationProductVersion is

6.2.1

It all seems pretty straightforward, right? Then why is MozillaVersion described as

5.0

for Netscape 6.0?

Although no one seems to be sure why this happened, it’s safe to assume that this is a holdover from

when the next planned version of Netscape was 5.0.

Netscape 7.1 was the last version of the Netscape-branded browser. AOL renewed its license agreement

with Microsoft to use Internet Explorer as the AOL software’s built-in browser and then it disbanded the

Netscape team. The Mozilla project still releases new versions of the browser on its own, along with a

friendlier version of Mozilla called Firefox.

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Browser and Operating System Detection

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