Why is cross browser testing important?

With the increasing number of access devices and an aspiration for achieving a uniform functional support, several functionalities are becoming obsolete while several advanced functionalities are made to be supported by browsers through their multiple version upgrades. This leads to a distorted performance of the same application through different browsers. A customer coming across a distorted view of an application, immediately loses faith in the application and moves on to other application providing similar functionalities. 

As per the Statistics courtesy of W3Schools, the browser usage share can be predicted as follows:

Internet Explorer (6, 7, 8): 30.4%

 

Firefox: 46.4%

 

Chrome: 16.7%

Safari: 3.4%

Opera 2.3%

However, there is no definite way to determine the combination of browsers that may be used to access an application. So, the only way out to ensure a seamless user experience of an application or website is its extensive cross browser and cross platform testing before launch.

Cross browser testing is performed to achieve the following

-      Ensure the uniform display of a page across different browsers

-      Find inconsistencies and fix it.

-      Enhance user experience and efficiency.

-      Be aware of any future failures.

-      Test authenticated access to private pages.

-      Test local, private network and firewall pages.

-      Increase lead conversion

-      Flatter your quality and persistence to your prospects.

Main decision for cross browser testing

-      Site Analytics can help to determine the main browsers to test on.

-      A detailed analysis is required to be done to determine which parts of the system needs to be tested extensively. The best approach is to perform a complete testing on one browser and test the most critical functionalities on the others.

-      Once the above two decisions are made, infrastructure decisions are then required to be made considering costs, risks, security issues, resources required and debugging schedules.

-      Initiate test cycle.

-      Report test results, make changes, if at all required, then retest.

The most common way to start cross browser testing is by listing the functions of the particular website and then methodically open up the site in different browsers to verify and validate the outcomes. The variations in version of the browsers make it important to ensure that all the pages are rendered as designed. 

Cross BrowserTesting can be performed either manually on multiple systems, multiple Operating systems, multiple web browsers, multiple configurations, multiple days, multiple investments and further multiple challenges. Or it can be performed through different testing tools available in the market. Some of the tools can be used free of cost, while some are paid.

Conclusion

As mentioned earlier, browsers are being constantly upgraded and new versions are continuously released. This necessitates keeping track of the upgrades introduced. Many firms neglect this phase because of lack of funds and knowledge. Being persistent and being strategic in this case will save time and money. Cross Browser Testing is now one of the most important aspect of a software development lifecycle which ensures the best experience for the users.

Short reviews on some Cross Browser Testing Tools.

With varying web browsers in the current market and the endless combination with the different operating systems, the behavior of web applications presents issues that can prevent the important functions from running uniformly throughout all browsers. Cross Browser testing reviews and compares the functionality and the styles of a website across multiple browsers, operating systems and mobile displays. 

Each of us work in our favorite browser. This makes us forget to test the application in the other browsers. Cross browserTesting checks the compatibility of the web application across the different web browsers and ensures that the web application performs efficiently across all of them. It tests both the client side and the server side of the Web Application.

The classical way of cross browser testing is to run the web application on as many computers and combinations of operating systems and web browsers. But nowadays there are much more efficient ways of testing web applications across different browsers. Here we have reviewed some of the cross browser testing tools. 

ADOBE BROWSERLAB

It is a free cross browser testing tool that gives a number of views, including single browser full page view, as well as a comparative side by side view. It also has the ability to create a pre-defined browser set for testing.

BROWSER SHOTS

It is a free and one of the most comprehensive testing tool which includes Linux and Windows. It also includes additional browsers that are not generally used as of now. It carries out testing on the latest versions of each browser. However, with the added number of browsers the result generation of this tool slows down.

LUNASCAPE6

It is a triple engine browser which runs on Windows. It supports all the three major rendering engines -  Webkit for Safari and Chrome, Gecko for Firefox and Trident for Internet Explorer. Thus the web application under test can be viewed under in all the major web browsers. It also supports the add-on extensions for Firefox plugins which further helps to diagnose compatibility problems.

IE TESTER

It is a free Windows Browser that supports the rendering and the Javascript engine for IE10 to IE5.5 on Windows 7, XP and Vista.

SPOON

It is a service for emulating application. It includes multiple versions of each browser.

SAUCELABS

It provides with a number of browser and OS combinations. It sets up a Virtual Machine Instance, that operates inside the browser. It also helps to build automated tests with the help of Selenium.

CLOUD TESTING:

It helps to perform cross browserfunctional testing. The user interaction is recorded with the browser and Selenium IDE and then uploaded for Cloud Testing which runs the script in multiple operating systems. 

BROW SERCAM

It includes tools for testing for both Mobile and Desktop. It gives remote access for live testing in Windows, OS X and Linux configurations. 

CROSS BROWSER TESTING

This tool provides with interactive testing on browsers with Virtual Network Computing sessions. It can generate screen shots across multiple browsers. 

MULTI BROWSER VIEWER

This covers both mobile and desktop browsers. It supports 26 Web browsers, five mobile browsers and 61 screen shot browsers. It is also available in multiple languages – English, French, German, Spanish and Russian.

CONCLUSION

There exists a great deal of variation between browsers and its different versions. This necessitates cross browser testing to ensure that all the pages are rendered as intended. A web application should be tested in those browsers that hold the most market share. Regardless of the testing tool that is chosen, the Web Application testing process should be preferably be shifted earlier in the development cycle. This can save a lot of time, effort and money later on.