BrowserHawk ships with cyScape’s browser definition files, named maindefs.bdf and maindefs.bdd. These files contain the definitions for most browsers and agents that are likely to visit your site. If you have custom needs for your browser detection, such as specific properties not tracked by this standard file, you can customize this file as desired. These files can be found in the directory in which you installed BrowserHawk, or in your system directory if you chose not to install the BrowserHawk Editor.
BrowserHawk provides extensive and unprecedented coverage of browsers by accurately recognizing literally thousands of varying browser user agent strings in use today. The definition files currently recognizes several thousand user agent strings and variations thereof, far exceeding any other form of browser detection today.
For example, BrowserHawk’s advanced pattern recognition and automatic version detection ensures that every single user agent string for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Mozilla, Opera, Netscape and hundreds of browsers are accurately identified. Variations caused by things such as proxy servers, operating system, version changes, and inconsistent user agents are now all a thing of the past!
It is important, however, to make sure you keep your browser definitions current. This is because new browsers, search agents, and other web viewing software are constantly evolving and being used to hit your site. cyScape makes it simple to keep your browser definition files current by using a single button to download and install the latest BDF from cyScape (requires an active Support and Maintenance plan). And for users of the Professional or Enterprise Editions, the updating of the browser definition files is automatic!
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