How to do browser detection with jQuery 1.3 with $.browser.msie deprecated?

Question

How should browser detection be done now that jQuery 1.3 has deprecated (and I'm assuming removed in a future version) $.browser.msie and similar?

I have used this a lot for determining which browser we are in for CSS fixes for pretty much every browser, such as:

$.browser.opera
$.browser.safari
$.browser.mozilla

... well I think that's all of them :)

The places where I use it, I'm not sure what browser issue is causing the problem, because a lot of times I'm just trying to fix a 1 px difference in a browser.

Edit: With the new jQuery functionality, there is no way to determine if you are in IE6 or IE7. How should one determine this now?

Answer 1

Yes, the browser detection has been deprecated, but the deprecated properties probably won't be removed from jQuery anytime soon. And when they will be removed, if you still absolutely need to do browser detection, you can add the same functionality easily with a small, simple plugin.

So, my answer is to do nothing about it, for now :)

edit: I'll even provide you with a plugin to use in the future (not tested, copy-pasted from jquery source):

(function($) {
    var userAgent = navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase();

    $.browser = {
        version: (userAgent.match( /.+(?:rv|it|ra|ie)[\/: ]([\d.]+)/ ) || [0,'0'])[1],
        safari: /webkit/.test( userAgent ),
        opera: /opera/.test( userAgent ),
        msie: /msie/.test( userAgent ) && !/opera/.test( userAgent ),
        mozilla: /mozilla/.test( userAgent ) && !/(compatible|webkit)/.test( userAgent )
    };

})(jQuery);