Internet Explorer 9 really version 7?

Question

I am seeing some funky things with the version of IE on a user's system. My perl cgi app says the version is 'MSIE 7' and when you click on help,about in the web browser, it says it's MSIE 9.

Perl Code for browser data:

my $browser_data = $ENV{'HTTP_USER_AGENT'};

Why does it say that IE is version 7 instead of 9??

Thx!!

John

Answer 1

Your user has either "Intranet Settings" or "Compatibility View" enabled for your site.

Both of these IE features make IE8 and IE9 pretend to be IE7.

You can tell it's lying, and derive the real version, from the presence of Trident in the User-Agent string - see Understanding user-agent strings on MSDN.