I have been experimenting in my spare time with browser-fingerprinting, something that my current job deals with. Below are two curious things I have noticed.
Background: In the mobile versions of Chrome and Opera, the values of screen.width tend to be swapped with screen.height when the device's orientation toggles between portrait and landscape. And screen.availWidth is swapped with screen.availHeight at the same time.
Curious Thing One: In the mobile version of Firefox, the values are not always simply swapped; often they are changed somewhat. Relevant cases are boldfaced below.
Browser: Firefox v. 35
| device & OS | portrait screen.width & .availWidth |
landscape screen.height & .availHeight |
portrait screen.height & .availHeight |
landscape screen.width & .availWidth |
screen.pixelDepth & .colorDepth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nexus 4, Android 5.0.1 | 384 | 384 | 592 | 598 | 24 |
| Nexus 5, Android 5.0.1 | 360 | 360 | 592 | 598 | 24 |
| Verizon Ellipsis, Android 4.4.2 | 600 | 522 | 912 | 960 | 24 |
Browser: Chrome v. 39.0.2171.93
| device & OS | portrait screen.width & .availWidth |
landscape screen.height & .availHeight |
portrait screen.height & .availHeight |
landscape screen.width & .availWidth |
screen.pixelDepth & .colorDepth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nexus 4, Android 5.0.1 | 384 | 384 | 640 | 640 | 32 |
| Nexus 5, Android 5.0.1 | 360 | 360 | 640 | 640 | 32 |
| Verizon Ellipsis, Android 4.4.2 | 601 | 601 | 692 | 692 | 32 |
Browser: Opera v. 26.0.1656.87080
| device & OS | portrait screen.width & .availWidth |
landscape screen.height & .availHeight |
portrait screen.height & .availHeight |
landscape screen.width & .availWidth |
screen.pixelDepth & .colorDepth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nexus 4, Android 5.0.1 | 384 | 384 | 640 | 640 | 32 |
| Nexus 5, Android 5.0.1 | 360 | 360 | 640 | 640 | 32 |
| Verizon Ellipsis, Android 4.4.2 | 601 | 601 | 692 | 692 | 32 |
Curious Thing Two: On the current version of iOS for the iPad mini, it seems that toggling the orientation is handled in such a way that screen.width and .height are not changed at all. That is, even when in landscape orientation, the width of the screen is reported as narrower than the height of the screen:
Browser: Chrome v. 39.0.2171.50:
| device & OS | portrait screen.width & .availWidth |
landscape screen.height & .availHeight |
portrait screen.height & .availHeight |
landscape screen.width & .availWidth |
screen.pixelDepth & .colorDepth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| iPad mini, iOS 7.1.1 | 768 | 1024 (& 1004) | 1024 (& 1004) | 768 | 32 |
Browser: Opera v. 9.1.0.8673:
| device & OS | portrait screen.width & .availWidth |
landscape screen.height & .availHeight |
portrait screen.height & .availHeight |
landscape screen.width & .availWidth |
screen.pixelDepth & .colorDepth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| iPad mini, iOS 7.1.1 | 768 (& 748) | 1024 | 1024 | 768 (& 748) | 32 |
Notes:
- On iOS,
screen.widthandscreen.availWidthdiffer slightly in Opera, unlike on Nexus 4, Nexus 5, or Verizon Ellipsis. In Chrome,screen.heightandscreen.availHeightlikewise differ slightly. - At the time of this writing, Firefox is not available for iOS.
- For the iOS results, it does not seem to make a different what the orientation of the device is at startup or when the apps are launched. Clearing the browser caches and browsing history makes no difference, either.
- This research was done 2015.01.15-19, using one version of each reported device. I have made no attempts to confirm these results on additional versions of the devices.
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