Easy Ways To Test Multiple Browsers

As a frontend developer you are often developing with your favourite browser which normally is NOT an Internet Explorer. So from time to time you open your web application in an IE and start screaming.

Here are some ways to easily test multiple browsers in different versions:

Spoon Browser Sandbox

A great and very easy way to test against multiple browsers in different version is the Spoon Browser Sandbox. You just have to install the plugin and you can run all browsers you see on the site through the spoon plugin. Sadly the spoon plugin is only available for IEs.

The browsers you run through the plugin behave like native installations but I sometimes got the IE notification bar asking me to install the MSMXML plugin or extension for no reason. Thats the only difference I've noticed to native installations for so far.

Advantages

• All major browsers in some different versions
• free

Disadvantages

• Only available for windows machines (run from IE)
• Validity of browser performance (?)

Virtual PC

Microsofts Virtual PC helps you test multiple Versions of IE on the same windows machine. There are free downloads of Virtual PC Images for IE 6, 7 and 8 on win XP SP 3 as well as IE 7 and 8 on Vista.

Disadvantages

• Only windows machines
• Only IEs
• Free images are expiring
• Validity of browser performance (?)

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Screenshot Tools

The following tools are just screenshot based and thereby not suitable for a large number of pages, functional testing of clientside behaviour and some of them even not for authenticated pages. However those tools are cool for a fast layout test executed in a large amount of os/browser combinations.

Browsershots

A great tool for testing the layout of a single (publicly available) site in multiple browsers is browserhots.org. Unfortunately it's not very helpful for testing functionality or big amounts of (high dynamic) sites.

Advantages

• Dozens of different browser versions on win, linux, bsd

Disadvantages

• Only publicly available sites
• Only screenshots, no functional or breadth testing
• Long queue time (not in paid version)

Browsercam

Unfortunately my free trial of www.browsercam.com didn't work at all. But as far as you can trust the demo its

Advantages

• Dozens of different browser versions on win (xp, vista, 2000), linux, mac os
• Testing with/without flash

Adobe Browserlab

Advantages

• free
• All major browsers in different versions on win and mac os
• Overlay of different browser screenshots for direct comparison

Microsoft Expression Web SuperPreview

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Summary

That's it for my first blog post. I hope somebody liked it resp. got something out of it. Please leave a comment if I got something wrong, you think I missed something or you got any other feedback for me.

Thanks for following

freak