How to Check If the Request Came from Mobile or Computer in PHP

PHP - Check if the page run on Mobile or Desktop browser

There is a very nice PHP library for detecting mobile clients here: http://mobiledetect.net

Using that it's quite easy to only display content for a mobile:

include 'Mobile_Detect.php';
$detect = new Mobile_Detect();

// Check for any mobile device.
if ($detect->isMobile()){
   // mobile content
}
else {
   // other content for desktops
}

Simplest way to detect a mobile device in PHP

Here is a source:

Detect Mobile Browser
Download PHP script

Code:

<?php

$useragent=$_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'];

if(preg_match('/(android|bb\d+|meego).+mobile|avantgo|bada\/|blackberry|blazer|compal|elaine|fennec|hiptop|iemobile|ip(hone|od)|iris|kindle|lge |maemo|midp|mmp|netfront|opera m(ob|in)i|palm( os)?|phone|p(ixi|re)\/|plucker|pocket|psp|series(4|6)0|symbian|treo|up\.(browser|link)|vodafone|wap|windows (ce|phone)|xda|xiino/i',$useragent)||preg_match('/1207|6310|6590|3gso|4thp|50[1-6]i|770s|802s|a wa|abac|ac(er|oo|s\-)|ai(ko|rn)|al(av|ca|co)|amoi|an(ex|ny|yw)|aptu|ar(ch|go)|as(te|us)|attw|au(di|\-m|r |s )|avan|be(ck|ll|nq)|bi(lb|rd)|bl(ac|az)|br(e|v)w|bumb|bw\-(n|u)|c55\/|capi|ccwa|cdm\-|cell|chtm|cldc|cmd\-|co(mp|nd)|craw|da(it|ll|ng)|dbte|dc\-s|devi|dica|dmob|do(c|p)o|ds(12|\-d)|el(49|ai)|em(l2|ul)|er(ic|k0)|esl8|ez([4-7]0|os|wa|ze)|fetc|fly(\-|_)|g1 u|g560|gene|gf\-5|g\-mo|go(\.w|od)|gr(ad|un)|haie|hcit|hd\-(m|p|t)|hei\-|hi(pt|ta)|hp( i|ip)|hs\-c|ht(c(\-| |_|a|g|p|s|t)|tp)|hu(aw|tc)|i\-(20|go|ma)|i230|iac( |\-|\/)|ibro|idea|ig01|ikom|im1k|inno|ipaq|iris|ja(t|v)a|jbro|jemu|jigs|kddi|keji|kgt( |\/)|klon|kpt |kwc\-|kyo(c|k)|le(no|xi)|lg( g|\/(k|l|u)|50|54|\-[a-w])|libw|lynx|m1\-w|m3ga|m50\/|ma(te|ui|xo)|mc(01|21|ca)|m\-cr|me(rc|ri)|mi(o8|oa|ts)|mmef|mo(01|02|bi|de|do|t(\-| |o|v)|zz)|mt(50|p1|v )|mwbp|mywa|n10[0-2]|n20[2-3]|n30(0|2)|n50(0|2|5)|n7(0(0|1)|10)|ne((c|m)\-|on|tf|wf|wg|wt)|nok(6|i)|nzph|o2im|op(ti|wv)|oran|owg1|p800|pan(a|d|t)|pdxg|pg(13|\-([1-8]|c))|phil|pire|pl(ay|uc)|pn\-2|po(ck|rt|se)|prox|psio|pt\-g|qa\-a|qc(07|12|21|32|60|\-[2-7]|i\-)|qtek|r380|r600|raks|rim9|ro(ve|zo)|s55\/|sa(ge|ma|mm|ms|ny|va)|sc(01|h\-|oo|p\-)|sdk\/|se(c(\-|0|1)|47|mc|nd|ri)|sgh\-|shar|sie(\-|m)|sk\-0|sl(45|id)|sm(al|ar|b3|it|t5)|so(ft|ny)|sp(01|h\-|v\-|v )|sy(01|mb)|t2(18|50)|t6(00|10|18)|ta(gt|lk)|tcl\-|tdg\-|tel(i|m)|tim\-|t\-mo|to(pl|sh)|ts(70|m\-|m3|m5)|tx\-9|up(\.b|g1|si)|utst|v400|v750|veri|vi(rg|te)|vk(40|5[0-3]|\-v)|vm40|voda|vulc|vx(52|53|60|61|70|80|81|83|85|98)|w3c(\-| )|webc|whit|wi(g |nc|nw)|wmlb|wonu|x700|yas\-|your|zeto|zte\-/i',substr($useragent,0,4)))

header('Location: http://detectmobilebrowser.com/mobile');

?>

How to detect if request came from mobile device

The general answer is no. You get a header / message from a device. All you know about the device is in the header and the device can write what it wants in it. If you are talking about http requests (which is indicated by agent lookup) you can look at a header here:

All you can do "reliable" is to look for the user agent. In my case it is Mozilla Firefox on Linux. But I could fake it if I want.

Host: somesite.org
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:34.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/34.0
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Referer: http://somesite.org/index.php?page=2
Cookie: rteStatus=rte; 
Cache-Control: max-age=0

Maybe you can get some informations from the referer if it is some chromium-mobile site or you can have a look at Accept and Accept-Enconding, maybe some mobile browsers accept different stuff. But there is no reliable way to determine the device but by its user Agent via header.

An other approach is to look if the request comes from an IP known as 3G or 4G pool. But this would just work if the requests is not coming via WLAN / WIFI. And I am not sure if a list of 3G / 4G IP address pools exists.

How to check if a request if coming from the same server or different server?

Basically : you cannot.

With the HTTP protocol, each request is independent from the others.

A first idea would be to check the Referer HTTP header, but note that :

It can be faked (it's sent by the browser)
It is not always present.

So : not a reliable solution.

A possible, and far better than the Referer idea, solution could be to use a nonce :

When displaying the form, put a hidden input field in it, containing a random value
At the same time, store that random value into the session that correspond to the user.
When the form is submitted, check that the hidden field has the same value as the one that's stored in session.

If those two values are not the same, refuse to use the submitted data.

Note : this idea is often used to help fight against CSRF -- and integrated in the "Form" component of some Frameworks (Zend Framework, for instance).

Best way to detect mobile users in Magento

You can try next way:

Create new store for your website with own store view which configure to use desired mobile theme package
go to index.php and add there some code to check is current user use mobile device (this question was already there how to check if the request came from mobile or computer in php )
add this check BEFORE line

Mage::run($mageRunCode, $mageRunType);

then use condition like this
if (is_mobile()) {
Mage::run('mobile_store_code');
} else {
Mage::run($mageRunCode, $mageRunType);
}

Just as variant.

UPD: for example decet method it self:

 function is_mobile() {
      $user_agent=strtolower(getenv('HTTP_USER_AGENT'));
      $accept=strtolower(getenv('HTTP_ACCEPT'));

      if ((strpos($accept,'text/vnd.wap.wml')!==false) ||
          (strpos($accept,'application/vnd.wap.xhtml+xml')!==false)) {
        return 1; 
      }

      if (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_X_WAP_PROFILE']) ||
          isset($_SERVER['HTTP_PROFILE'])) {
        return 2;
      } 
      return 0;
    }

Code taken from http://www.manhunter.ru/webmaster/272_opredelenie_mobilnih_brauzerov_na_php.html

Or this one

function isMobile()  
{  
    $regex_match = "/(nokia|iphone|android|motorola|^mot\-|softbank|foma|docomo|kddi|up\.browser|up\.link|"  
                 . "htc|dopod|blazer|netfront|helio|hosin|huawei|novarra|CoolPad|webos|techfaith|palmsource|"  
                 . "blackberry|alcatel|amoi|ktouch|nexian|samsung|^sam\-|s[cg]h|^lge|ericsson|philips|sagem|wellcom|bunjalloo|maui|"  
                 . "symbian|smartphone|mmp|midp|wap|phone|windows ce|iemobile|^spice|^bird|^zte\-|longcos|pantech|gionee|^sie\-|portalmmm|"  
                 . "jig\s browser|hiptop|^ucweb|^benq|haier|^lct|opera\s*mobi|opera\*mini|320x320|240x320|176x220"  
                 . ")/i";  

    if (preg_match($regex_match, strtolower($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']))) {  
        return TRUE;  
    }  

    if ((strpos(strtolower($_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT']),'application/vnd.wap.xhtml+xml') > 0) or ((isset($_SERVER['HTTP_X_WAP_PROFILE']) or isset($_SERVER['HTTP_PROFILE'])))) {  
        return TRUE;  
    }      

    $mobile_ua = strtolower(substr($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], 0, 4));  
    $mobile_agents = array(  
        'w3c ','acs-','alav','alca','amoi','audi','avan','benq','bird','blac',  
        'blaz','brew','cell','cldc','cmd-','dang','doco','eric','hipt','inno',  
        'ipaq','java','jigs','kddi','keji','leno','lg-c','lg-d','lg-g','lge-',  
        'maui','maxo','midp','mits','mmef','mobi','mot-','moto','mwbp','nec-',  
        'newt','noki','oper','palm','pana','pant','phil','play','port','prox',  
        'qwap','sage','sams','sany','sch-','sec-','send','seri','sgh-','shar',  
        'sie-','siem','smal','smar','sony','sph-','symb','t-mo','teli','tim-',  
        'tosh','tsm-','upg1','upsi','vk-v','voda','wap-','wapa','wapi','wapp',  
        'wapr','webc','winw','winw','xda ','xda-');  

    if (in_array($mobile_ua,$mobile_agents)) {  
        return TRUE;  
    }  

    if (isset($_SERVER['ALL_HTTP']) && strpos(strtolower($_SERVER['ALL_HTTP']),'OperaMini') > 0) {  
        return TRUE;  
    }  

    return FALSE;  
}

Code taken from http://snippy.ru/snippet/1864-Prostoy_sposob_opredelit_zahod_na_stranicu_cherez_mobilnyy_brauzer/

There many such example can be found with Google ;)