win-detect-browsers

Fast and native browser detection on Windows. Detects installed versions of Beaker, Brave, Chrome, Chromium, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Maxthon, Opera, Safari and Yandex.

Table of Contents

• Usage
• API
  • detect([names][, callback])
• CLI
  • Sample
• Install
• Background
• License

Usage

If you are upgrading: please see the changelog.

const detect = require('win-detect-browsers')

// All browsers
detect(function (err, browsers) {
  if (err) throw err
  console.log(browsers)
})

// All browsers with promise
const browsers = await detect()

// Search only for Chrome and Firefox
detect(['chrome', 'firefox'], function (err, browsers) {
  if (err) throw err

  for (let b of browsers) {
    console.log(b.version) // '57.0.2931.0'
    console.log(b.channel) // 'canary'
  }
})

API

detect([names][, callback])

names is an array of browser names you want to find. If omitted or empty, it will detect everything. The callback receives an error if any and an array of results. A result is excluded if its path has no .exe extension or if its version could not be read. If no callback is provided, a promise is returned.

Each result is an object with the following properties:

• name (string): chrome, chromium, firefox, beaker, brave, ie, msedge, maxthon, opera, safari, yandex
• path (string): absolute path to executable
• version (string)
• arch (string): CPU type the executable was built for: amd64, i386 or other;
• info (object): executable metadata (see sample below).

Additional properties are usually available but not guaranteed:

• channel (string):
  • Chrome: stable, canary, beta or dev
  • Firefox: release, developer, nightly or esr
  • Older versions of Firefox: aurora, beta or rc;
  • Opera: stable, beta or developer.

CLI

win-detect-browsers [options] [name, name..]

Write browsers to stdout as a JSON array. Includes all browsers unless one or more names are given (see list above).

Options:

• --help -h: Show help
• --version -v: Show CLI version number
• --summary -s: Less properties;
• --debug -d: Enable debug output.

Sample

On Windows 10:

[
  {
    "name": "ie",
    "path": "C:\\Program Files\\Internet Explorer\\iexplore.exe",
    "version": "11.0.17134.1",
    "arch": "amd64",
    "info": {
      "FileVersion": "11.0.17134.1",
      "CompanyName": "Microsoft Corporation",
      "FileDescription": "Internet Explorer",
      "InternalName": "iexplore",
      "LegalCopyright": "© Microsoft Corporation. Alle rechten voorbehouden.",
      "OriginalFilename": "IEXPLORE.EXE.MUI",
      "ProductName": "Internet Explorer",
      "ProductVersion": "11.00.17134.1"
    }
  },
  {
    "name": "ie",
    "path": "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Internet Explorer\\iexplore.exe",
    "version": "11.0.17134.1",
    "arch": "i386",
    "info": {
      "FileVersion": "11.0.17134.1",
      "CompanyName": "Microsoft Corporation",
      "FileDescription": "Internet Explorer",
      "InternalName": "iexplore",
      "LegalCopyright": "© Microsoft Corporation. Alle rechten voorbehouden.",
      "OriginalFilename": "IEXPLORE.EXE.MUI",
      "ProductName": "Internet Explorer",
      "ProductVersion": "11.00.17134.1"
    }
  },
  {
    "name": "firefox",
    "path": "C:\\Program Files\\Mozilla Firefox\\firefox.exe",
    "version": "61.0.0.6711",
    "channel": "release",
    "arch": "amd64",
    "info": {
      "FileVersion": "61.0.0.6711",
      "LegalCopyright": "©Firefox and Mozilla Developers; available under the MPL 2 license.",
      "CompanyName": "Mozilla Corporation",
      "FileDescription": "Firefox",
      "ProductVersion": "61.0",
      "InternalName": "Firefox",
      "LegalTrademarks": "Firefox is a Trademark of The Mozilla Foundation.",
      "OriginalFilename": "../../dist/bin/firefox.exe",
      "ProductName": "Firefox",
      "BuildID": "20180517141400"
    }
  },
  {
    "name": "firefox",
    "path": "C:\\Program Files\\Firefox Developer Edition\\firefox.exe",
    "version": "61.0.0.6711",
    "channel": "developer",
    "arch": "amd64",
    "info": {
      "FileVersion": "61.0.0.6711",
      "LegalCopyright": "©Firefox and Mozilla Developers; available under the MPL 2 license.",
      "CompanyName": "Mozilla Corporation",
      "FileDescription": "Firefox Developer Edition",
      "ProductVersion": "61.0",
      "InternalName": "Firefox Developer Edition",
      "LegalTrademarks": "Firefox is a Trademark of The Mozilla Foundation.",
      "OriginalFilename": "../../dist/bin/firefox.exe",
      "ProductName": "Firefox Developer Edition",
      "BuildID": "20180517141400"
    }
  },
  {
    "name": "firefox",
    "path": "C:\\Program Files\\Firefox Nightly\\firefox.exe",
    "version": "62.0.0.6712",
    "channel": "nightly",
    "arch": "amd64",
    "info": {
      "FileVersion": "62.0.0.6712",
      "LegalCopyright": "©Firefox and Mozilla Developers; available under the MPL 2 license.",
      "CompanyName": "Mozilla Corporation",
      "FileDescription": "Firefox Nightly",
      "ProductVersion": "62.0a1",
      "InternalName": "Firefox Nightly",
      "LegalTrademarks": "Firefox is a Trademark of The Mozilla Foundation.",
      "OriginalFilename": "firefox.exe",
      "ProductName": "Firefox Nightly",
      "BuildID": "20180518222751"
    }
  },
  {
    "name": "chrome",
    "path": "C:\\Users\\vweevers\\AppData\\Local\\Google\\Chrome SxS\\Application\\chrome.exe",
    "version": "68.0.3436.0",
    "channel": "canary",
    "arch": "amd64",
    "info": {
      "FileVersion": "68.0.3436.0",
      "CompanyName": "Google Inc.",
      "FileDescription": "Google Chrome",
      "InternalName": "chrome_exe",
      "LegalCopyright": "Copyright 2017 Google Inc. All rights reserved.",
      "OriginalFilename": "chrome.exe",
      "ProductName": "Google Chrome",
      "ProductVersion": "68.0.3436.0",
      "CompanyShortName": "Google",
      "ProductShortName": "Chrome",
      "LastChange": "e0f81fe637f233bf12e821915b72bc8d2194c3f2-refs/branch-heads/3436@{#1}",
      "Official Build": "1"
    }
  },
  {
    "name": "chrome",
    "path": "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Google\\Chrome\\Application\\chrome.exe",
    "version": "66.0.3359.181",
    "channel": "stable",
    "arch": "amd64",
    "info": {
      "FileVersion": "66.0.3359.181",
      "CompanyName": "Google Inc.",
      "FileDescription": "Google Chrome",
      "InternalName": "chrome_exe",
      "LegalCopyright": "Copyright 2017 Google Inc. All rights reserved.",
      "OriginalFilename": "chrome.exe",
      "ProductName": "Google Chrome",
      "ProductVersion": "66.0.3359.181",
      "CompanyShortName": "Google",
      "ProductShortName": "Chrome",
      "LastChange": "a10b9cedb40738cb152f8148ddab4891df876959-refs/branch-heads/3359@{#828}",
      "Official Build": "1"
    }
  },
  {
    "name": "opera",
    "path": "C:\\Program Files\\Opera beta\\Launcher.exe",
    "version": "53.0.2907.31",
    "channel": "beta",
    "arch": "amd64",
    "info": {
      "FileVersion": "53.0.2907.31",
      "LegalCopyright": "Copyright Opera Software 2018",
      "InternalName": "Opera",
      "CompanyName": "Opera Software",
      "ProductName": "Opera beta Internet Browser",
      "ProductVersion": "53.0.2907.31",
      "FileDescription": "Opera beta Internet Browser"
    }
  }
]

Install

With npm do:

npm install win-detect-browsers     # For API
npm install win-detect-browsers -g  # For CLI

Background

Browser detection on Windows can't be done right. This is the try-everything-and-fail-silently approach. It accounts for architecture differences, normalizes environment variables, tries default locations, searches the registry (in the HKLM and HKCU hives as well as WoW counterparts) (including Start Menu Internet Applications, Google Updater and more), and looks in PATH. Version numbers are then read from the executable metadata.

browser-launcher by substack has poor Windows support, and it prompted me to create this module. It is now used in browser-launcher2, ~~an active~~ a once active fork of browser-launcher.

License

MIT