Incorrect timezone in Firefox, compared to Safari,

Question

The following code

var date = new Date();
console.log( date );

gives me

Sun Mar 06 2011 21:41:36 GMT+1300 (NZST) {}

in Firefox, but

Sun Mar 06 2011 21:40:51 GMT+1300 (NZDT)

in Safari (which is correct).

My system Date & Time is set to NZDT, so I'm wondering where firefox is getting its NZST from. Mind you, the UTC offset (+1300) is correct in both cases.

How can I get Firefox displaying the correct timezone: NZDT?

Answer 1

If everything is how you want it except for the "NZST", you could just do a simple text replace:

console.log(date.toString().replace('NZST', 'NZDT'));

Note that this is really only simple fix for the display issue, it doesn't address the underlying cause.

Answer 2

This was a bug that was fixed in Firefox v4 and later.

Answer 3

You shouldn't rely on that output as it's different in other browsers (IE), instead you should use the getTimezoneOffset method.

var date = new Date;
console.log( date.getTimezoneOffset() );

The offset will change with day light savings but there are ways to work with this.