Re: Remove get_browser() from core

Hi Martin, Martin Keckeis wrote:

i think it's time to deprecate the function get_browser(). The reason is simple: Since the browscap.ini file has grown a lot this function does need way too much time, see here for example http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12067641/get-browser-slowing-down-page-load-any-alternative The underlying browscap.ini file is still a very resource to use and there are very good official packages out there to use it https://packagist.org/packages/browscap/browscap-php I also compared the browscap.ini file to other UserAgent parsers around and it looks still good http://thadafinser.github.io/UserAgentParserComparison/results/index.html

I'd also support removing get_browser(), but for a different reason: it encourages user agent sniffing, which is a bad practice that has led to the mess that is modern User-Agent headers. The web is an open platform which degrades gracefully, where you can detect if browsers support features you need and adapt accordingly. Detecting specific browsers is harmful to competition and not future-proof. Thanks. -- Andrea Faulds http://ajf.me/