Browser Testing

Posted March 30th, 2010
Last updated July 18th, 2011

When developing a website, it’s important to test your site in as many browsers as possible—or at least in the major browsers, which currently include Internet Explorer (IE), Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera. Ideally, you should do this testing while you are building the site, rather than once it’s finished. (It’s very painful to discover that your finished website—which displays perfectly in standards-compliant browsers—is completely broken in one or more versions of IE.) It is better to identify problems as they arise, so that one fault does not build upon another. (I see a lot of people in the web forums with this problem, and it’s often obvious that the best option would be to recode the whole site from scratch—which is not unlike pulling down a new building and rebuilding it from the ground up.)

Solutions

Having access to all of the major browsers is a tricky issue for most web developers. For one thing, there is no longer a version of IE for the Mac, so if you are developing on that platform, you’ll need access to Windows. And even if you are developing on a PC, which version of IE do you have installed? You cannot easily have more than one version of IE running on a single machine. (Users of other browsers tend to upgrade to the latest version, but there will always remain users of older versions; and even the better browsers have their quirks—and as with IE, it is not easy to have more than one version running on one computer at the same time.)

Multiple computers

There are various solutions, none of which is necessarily very simple. Of course, you could have a different computer for each browser, but that is not a very efficient or realistic option. A separate computer for IE8, IE7, IE6, Firefox 3.5, Firefox 3, Firefox 2, Safari 4, Safari 3, Opera 10, Opera 9 … and so on is simply not feasible.

Virtualization software

The next best option is probably to make use of ‘virtualization’ software. This allows you to run multiple operating systems on one computer—meaning that you can have each version of IE running on one computer, as well as various versions of the other browsers. This option still leaves PC users with the problem of testing Macs (although, generally speaking, the main browsers for Mac are also available for PC and are generally very reliable, making testing on a Mac not really a big issue). Mac users have the extra luxury of being able to run both Windows and the Mac OS simultaneously on the one machine—either by choosing which OS to use when they turn on the computer, or by installing virtualization software that allows Windows to run alongside the Mac OS.

Various companies—such as VMware and Parallels—compete to offer the best virtualization software; and their products are available for a very reasonable price (if not free):

• VMware offers VMware Fusion for Mac, and for PC they offer the free VMware Player, which enables multiple OS installations.
• Parallels offers Parallels Desktop for Macs, and Parallels Desktop for Windows & Linux.

Free options (online)

These services provide screen shots of how you page renders in various browsers. You enter the page URL into a form field. They provide a handy guide, although you can’t debug any problems.

• BrowserShots
• IE NetRenderer: screenshots of IE, from version 5.5 up. You can also access this service via a Firefox plugin.
• Super Screenshot provides Safari screenshots.

Free options (download)

These are software packages that run on your desktop:

• Spoon Browser Sandbox is a handy service if you are running Windows. It allows you to download aplications that run popular web browsers with no installs, including all versions of Internet Explorer back to version 6.
• IE tester, a free browser that allows you to have the rendering and JavaScript engines of IE8, IE7 IE 6 and IE5.5 on Windows 7, Vista and XP, as well as the installed IE in the same process.
• Virtual PC
• VirtualBox, virtual machines that allows multiple operating systems to be installed on one machine. (Windows, Mac and Linux compatible.)
• VMware Player, a free virtual machine allowing installation of multiple operating systems in a PC environment.
• Browser Sandbox, which allows you to run the major browsers from the web. It is only available to Windows users. You need to download a plugin that allows you to view other browser renderings through your default browser, which is why I’ve listed it under download products. This service has been recommended by some influential people; and if you can figure out how to use it, it’s all yours! (I don’t get it at all…)
• The Internet Explorer Collection, a downloadable package containing multiple, standalone versions of IE that can run at the same time.
• The Mozilla Firefox Collection is much like the above, allowing multiple versions of Firefox to run at once.
• Microsoft also offers the Microsoft Expression Web SuperPreview for Windows Internet Explorer, described as a standalone “visual debugging tool that makes it easier to migrate your web sites from Internet Explorer 6 to Internet Explorer 7 or 8”.
• Another Microsoft tool for testing websites in different Internet Explorer versions is Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Image, described as “VPC Hard Disk Images for testing websites with different Internet Explorer versions on Windows XP and Windows Vista”.
• The Utilu IE Collection, “contains multiple standalone versions of the browser Internet Explorer, which can be used at the same time”.
• What about Safari on the iPhone and iPad? Apart from testing on the actual devices, you can download Apple’s iPhone Simulator as part of their iPhone and iPad developer tools (aka the iOS SDK 4)—though this only runs on a Mac. For the iPhone and iPad, there is the handy iBBDemo2, a simple, cross-platform tester by Blackbaud Labs that runs on Adobe Air.
• PortableApps had a nice tool for running multiple versions of Firefox, Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition.

Commercial products

Other than virtualization software, these services have a popular following:

• BrowserCam is a powerful service, but is quite expensive. You can sign up for a group subscription at SitePoint.
• CrossBrowserTesting is a powerful set of tools for testing your sites in different browsers and on different platforms, including screenshots and interactive testing of JavaScript and Flash.
• Litmus is another handy tool you can register to use.
• Browsercamp allows you to test Mac page renderings in a wide range of browsers. You can also sign up for your own personal remote Mac, install browsers, run scripts, test emails in Mac Mail and even mess with system configuration.
• Adobe Browserlab. At the moment this service is free, but only for a limited time (until 2011). Looks like a good service, offering side-by-side screenshots that can be compared for pixel-perfect similitude (if you really care about that). It does offer Dreamweaver integration too.
• BrowserSeal is “a fast and easy to use cross browser testing and screenshot tool”, including all the major browsers and also Opera Mini.
• Mogotest is a comprehensive online testing tool that not only provides page views but site spidering, creation of page groupings, test histories, login for testing protected content, code analysis and validation, comparison tools, test scheduling, API access and more.
• Multi-Browser Viewer is another interesting option. It supports many browsers (including mobile ones) and has some other interesting functions as well.

Hopefully this will be a useful list for somebody. I readily admit that I’ve not tried many of the options above. I use VMware Fusion on my Mac, and that covers all bases for me, really.

If you know of any other browser testing options that I’ve missed, please let me know!

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Acknowledgements & Links

• 7 ways to check cross browser compatibility
• Browsershot free test
• Building the best browser test suite

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