What are the potential pitfalls of using PHP to detect mobile browsers on the server side?

One potential pitfall of using PHP to detect mobile browsers on the server side is that the user agent string can be easily manipulated by the client, leading to inaccurate results. To mitigate this issue, it is recommended to use a more reliable method such as feature detection or responsive design techniques. 

// Using feature detection to determine if the request is coming from a mobile device
function isMobileDevice() {
    return preg_match('/(android|webos|iphone|ipad|ipod|blackberry|windows phone)/i', $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']);
}

if(isMobileDevice()) {
    // Code to handle mobile devices
} else {
    // Code to handle non-mobile devices
}

Keywords

User-Agent header browser detection mobile detection server-side scripting device compatibility

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