Safari's AppleWebKit versions

Any authoritative sources that list all versions?

[GaryK]

I received e-mail from someone who wants me to add the below user agent to my browscap.ini file. I saw lots of evidence of this user agent in log files when I did a Google [google.com] search but the version number was so odd that I'm wondering if it was spoofed.

Does anyone know of an authoritative source for the AppleWebKit versions in Safari?

As a web developer are you more concerned that it's Safari Version 1.0 or AppleWebKit/97?

Mozilla/5.0+(Macintosh;+U;+PPC+Mac+OS+X;+en-us)+AppleWebKit/85.7+(KHTML,+like+Gecko)+Safari/85.5

[GaryK]

Can anyone help me with these issues, please? If not perhaps a moderator would be kind enough to move it back to its original forum, HTML and Browsers. Thank you.

[Macguru]

Hi GaryK,

I believe this thread will get a better attention in the Mac forum.

Unfortunatly, I did not find any site listing all of Safari's User Agent Strings.
As you mentionned, we can find many tracks of this specific build in logfiles. I also found some of them in niche browser forums printing members User Agent Strings as a signature. Many different members used it.

The entire Safari User Agent String is :

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/XX (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/YY

...where XX is the version of Apple's web technology used by Safari and YY is the version of the Safari application.

[developer.apple.com...]

So I guess it wasn't spoofed.

Hope it helped a bit

[GaryK]

Hi, Macguru.

I appreciate your reply and the link. I visited that link some time ago which is why I decided to hold firm on how I handle Safari versioning in my browscap.ini file.

What really makes me question the validity of the user agent in question is that I can find no other Safari release where the AppleWebKit version differed from the Safari application version and also no other Safari release where the version is not represented as a whole number.

[Macguru]

I could find many of them here, but the page is in French.

[mozilla.tlk.fr...]

<edit> rats! the list just changed and has no google cache... try this one now
[mozilla.tlk.fr...] : Or this one
[aubs.net...]
</edit>

I could find many other occurences of this specific User Agent string by searching (with quotes) "AppleWebKit/85.7 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/85.5" [google.com]. About the same results you got.

I dont know how can AppleWebKit version differ from the Safari application version. There are a couple of "Safari Enhancers" programs out there that les users toy with User Agent Strings, but I dont know to wich extent. Could it be the cause? Or is it a later build?

[GaryK]

I don't know how can AppleWebKit version differ from the Safari application version.

The link to the Apple developers site seems to suggest it is possible for the two versions to be different. But with this one exception the two version numbers, up to and including the current 0.97 have always been the same and have always been whole numbers.

There are a couple of "Safari Enhancers" programs out there that let users toy with User Agent Strings, but I don't know to which extent.

I wish I could find some commonality between all the log entries that show the user agent in question. That would convince me it's spoofed/modified. Until then I'm going to continue to assume it is spoofed/modified.

<opinion>
It's a shame Apple hasn't done a better job of documenting their official releases.
</opinion>

Thanks again for your help, Macguru. If anyone else stumbles across this thread please share your thoughts with me.