June 29, 2017
Today, we released a major update: WURFL API release 1.9.0.0. The API is a major step forward for our device detection solution, and marks some strategic product changes that users should prepare for.
What’s new in WURFL API Release 1.9.0.0:
- Added Apple TV and Roku detection
- Added Tizen 3.0, Epiphany, Samsung DeX, Samsung Browser User-Agents detection
- Improved detection of Apps and robots
- Improved detection of iOS, Amazon Silk Browser, Android, and CFNetwork User-Agents
- Stripping non-printable characters from User-Agents
- Support for new WURFL capabilities: jpeg_2000 and jpeg_xr
Breaking Change – Decommissioning of Engine Target Options
ScientiaMobile has removed the option to choose between “high accuracy” and “high performance” engine optimization. With release 1.9.0.0, WURFL API now use solely “high accuracy” for the detection of traffic.
Prior to release 1.9.0.0, users could choose between “high accuracy” and “high performance” engine optimization options. We introduced these options years ago to manage the behavior of certain web browsers and their tendency to present “always different” User-Agent strings that would baffle strategies to cache similar WURFL queries in memory. Since then, this problem has been solved by browser vendors. The need to adopt this strategy has ultimately disappeared. In most circumstances, there was no longer much to be gained with the “high performance” mode. ScientiaMobile has elected to simplify configuration and go in the direction of uniform API behavior in different contexts.
Customers who analyze web traffic that includes a large proportion of desktop traffic may still enable the old “high performance” internal behavior by enabling the option for fast matching of desktop browsers (“ENGINE_TARGET_FAST_DESKTOP_BROWSER_MATCH”, fastDesktopBrowserMatch, and similar for each language’s API). Please note that installations previously using “high performance” target engine will not receive an error. The old behavior will not be triggered, though. The default target (corresponding to the old “high accuracy”) will be used instead.
For more details please refer this document. If you need additional help feel free to contact our support team.
Deprecation of WURFL OnSite Database API (DBAPI) for PHP and Tera-WURFL
As previously informed, WURFL API 1.9.0.0 will be the last feature update for WURFL OnSite Database API (DBAPI) or the PHP and MySQL-based API previously known as Tera-WURFL. We have created a detailed migration guide to make it easier for your team to migrate away from DBAPI.
Users of these DBAPI/ Tera-WURFL should plan on migrating to our WURFL OnSite for PHP. A plan is outlined here. If you have any questions about this or other options, please contact us.
