A lot has been changing drastically in the technology domain and that too in quick successions. If you compare, since the past decade, there has been a remarkable increase in the number of browsers that are used for surfing. We all have own our preferences to surf the web in the browsers we like, therefore it is very essential and also one of the most important factor to make websites that are completely compatible across different browsers.
Today, everyone uses a different browser. Between popular options like Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Internet Explorer, which make up close to 98% of the internet market share of browsers, and the other little known browsers, there are a multitude of browsers being used to surf a website.
It is imperative to ensure that a website is functional across all major browsers be it over mobile devices or web browsing devices. Something that makes a website great is when it is compatible in multiple browsers regardless of any versions. Technically this is referred to as cross-browser compatibility. You should make sure your website is cross-browser-compatible and that is done by cross-browser compatibility test.
A few Cross browser testing tools are Unleashed below that you can use for your cross-browser compatibility check.
- BrowserStack
- Sauce Labs
- CrossBrowserTesting
- Browsershots
- Browsera
- Testing Bot
We can consider the below points while performing a website for a browser compatibility test:
First and foremost list the available browsers and their trends: This helps you to know the stats of the browsers that keep falling and rising month on month. It makes you aware of the major browsers and accordingly helps to contribute our time and efforts with the compatible browsers. Observing trends would help to understand in which browser to invest more time, ignoring the rest for some time.
Simple and manual tests are the best: The best outcome of testing your website for browser compatibility is yielded by installing multiple versions of browsers on different operating systems, but this might not always be easy to carry out due to time and resources constraints. Check for archive of browsers and versions. This will help you get a good kick start of testing the browsers you want to test – old and new both.
Virtualization: To save costs on running multiple computers with multiple operating systems – run virtual machines on one box, with many browsers installed on different operating systems.
Use appropriate tools: The tools mentioned above are very useful to perform compatibility testing.
Mobiles are a rage, don’t forget them: Often developers develop sites just for web and ignore mobile devices. They should not forget mobile usage is at peak. Therefore though it becomes challenging both for developers and testers yet it an essential part of cross-browser compatibility testing.
