support web workers

[jampy]

Please add support for web workers.

cuid() currently throws an exception in web workers since navigator.mimeTypes is not available in that context.

Generally, for the fingerprint I suggest to collect various strings as a whole, gracefully handling errors, and then create a fingerprint out of that (arbitrary length) string using some hash function - like MD5, but perhaps something more lightweight.

Something in this direction:

api.fingerprint = function browserPrint() {

  var things = [];

  try {
    for (var i = 0; i < navigator.mimeTypes.length; i++) {
      things.push(navigator.mimeTypes[i]);
    }
  } catch (e) {
    // ignore errors
  }

  try {
    things.push(navigator.userAgent);
  } catch (e) {
    // ignore errors
  }

  // maybe add some more...

  things.push(api.globalCount());

  return someHashFunction(things.join(""));
};

I think you get the idea...

[ericelliott]

I get the idea. Willing to look at a PR. I don't like the idea of using anything but the most rudimentary fast hashing algorithm (like, something that could be implemented in less than 10 LOC). cuid should remain a tiny dependency.

Also, I'd prefer not to use try/catch. We can check for feature availability without slowing things down with error catching.

While we're at it, we could use feature detection to eliminate the separate build for Node. Game on!

[jampy]

Okay, will think about a PR once I get some time perhaps (at the moment I'm using shortid)

As for the try/catch: AFAIK the fingerprint() function is only executed once, so I don't think speed is relevant.

[ericelliott]

Good point.

[ericelliott]

This should be fixed now. Reopen if you still have trouble.