Website Browser Testing

Jonny Thompson — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 18:20:28 +0000

If you’re a web developer then you’ve surely dealt with the headaches and pains around building websites for different browsers (-cough- Internet Explorer). While it would make us all feel a little better if this would soon go-away don’t hold your breath on that one. In fact, it’s likely that this will become more difficult before it gets easier. The bottom line is that cross-browser compatibility will continue to be hot issue for quite awhile and the key drivers are your web site’s target audience. Some of the best options for testing reside in some very nice tools around browser testing. Here are some of my favorites:

Multiple IE (free) – most web developers will agree that Internet Explorer causes the most cross-browser issues. Multiple IE provides a free download which installs all versions of IE going back to IE3 (including IE6, IE5.5, IE 5.01, IE4.01). Most browser testing will only take screenshots of certain pages. Multiple IE allows you to browse sites in real time!
Browsershots (free) – this screen-capture program offers to take screenshots of a website on windows, mac, and linux platforms. You can’t go wrong with the price – free, but be prepared to wait awhile for your screenshots.
BrowserCam (monthly fee) – for a relatively low price you can get access to a very robust screen capture browser testing system. The features allowed in this software seem to be endless with a listing of almost every browser you could think of running on almost every platform available (even mobile). Purchasing options range from daily plans to full year plans.

Useful Links:

Browser Tests, Services and Compatibility Test Suites (Smashing Magazine)
Acid2 Test (WaSP)
Browser Usage Stats (W3Counter)
How to Check Your Website with Multiple Browsers (The Site Wizard)

Yakiji (Yah-key-jee) » Browsers

Website Browser Testing