I’ve seen this plugin used on a few different blogs (including Opera Watch), but wasn’t sure exactly what the plugin was called or where to find it.   Now I’ve managed to find it, so I thought I would share it with everyone.  

The Browser Sniff plugin does exactly what it says.  It records what web browser and operating system were used when a comment was done and includes it with the post.    If you leave a comment on this website, just above the comment box you can now see your information.  

In order to install it, you’ll have to go through one extra step beyond a normal install because a zip wasn’t included.  First, you’ll need to copy this code and paste it into a blank Notepad file, then save it as browsniff.php.  Now upload and activate it like normal.   Once this is done, you’ll need to go into your comments loop and paste the following code where you want to display the information:

<?php pri_print_browser("using ", "", false, 'on'); ?>

Here is what the above strings represent, according to the author of the plugin:

  1. String to be printed before description
  2. String to be printed after description
  3. Whether to display icons or not, set this to true or false.
  4. String to be printed between web browser and operating system description, defaults to ‘on’.

String before and after the description will not be printed if there’s no recorded user agent string (as with comments migrated from WordPress 1.2). If the visitor is ‘cookied’ (blog administrator visiting the blog), the function will also print an asterisk titled with the full user agent string (hover to see it).

This plugin certainly fits into the category of fluff, but I think its a nice and fun addition to any blog.  So far, the only problem with this plugin is people being able to see Internet Explorer 6.0 next to my name when I leave comments from work.Â