As per w3c, IE only has 43% of total browser’s market share. Rest all shared by other browsers including Firefox, safari, opera, Chrome and others. For this reason, it is mandatory that a website is accessible on all major browsers.
Who would like a scenario where one’s website is compatible with IE7 but not accessible on Firefox2 or on IE6? But at the same time, maintaining all these browsers in-house and dedicating resources to test the website against all these browsers could be very expensive and cumbersome task. Now add to this list the mobile browsers and the task becomes almost impossible.
Fortunately, there are still ways which can make it possible to test for cross browser compatibility with minimum of fuss. Here I am going to suggest 10 different resources which can help you determine if your website is cross browser compatible.
1. BrowserCam
Browsercam supports numerous browsers and operating systems. You can also check you website on different devices like mobile, PDA etc. They also provide remote access service where you can remotely login to a machine with desired configuration and can test the website in real time.
It is a paid service with options for daily, monthly, or yearly package. You can get 1 day free trial. And their packages start with $39.95 per month.
2. Browsershots
Browsershots supports 100+ browsers and operating system combinations. It is quite popular amongst designers and developers.
It is a free service. For fast results, paid service at $29.95/month, is also available.
3. NetMechanic Browser Photo
http://www.netmechanic.com/products/browser-index.shtml
Browser photo supports Internet Explorer, Opera, Firefox and Safari on Windows, Mac and Linux. You can select various screen resolutions as well.
It’s a paid service. $15 for one-time use or $150 per domain/year for unlimited use.
4. Litmus Apps
Litmus supports all major browsers on windows and mac. They also provide w3c validation report. Litmus also offers testing of HTML emails in all major email clients.
It also provides a free service but that only supports IE7 and firefox and with a limitation of 50 tests/month. Paid packages include day pass with full access for $24, an individual subscription for $49/month and a team subscription for $199/month.
5. IE NetRenderer
http://www.ipinfo.info/netrenderer/
IE NetRenderer supports Internet Explorer 8, 7, 6 und 5.5.
It is a free service.
6. BrowserCamp
BrowserCamp allows you to test the compatibility of your design with Mac OSX browsers. They support 12 different MAC OSX browsers including safari, firefox, Camino, SeaMonkey, Flock, opera etc.
It’s a paid service. You can purchase $3 for a two-day subscription, $7 for a One week subscription, $19 for a One month subscription or $99 for a one-year subscription.
7. IE Tester from DebugBar
http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage
It is a free web browser that allows you to have the rendering and JavaScript engines IE8, IE7 IE 6 and IE5.5 on Vista and XP, as well as the installed IE in the same process.
It is free.
8. CrossBrowserTesting
http://www.crossbrowsertesting.com/
Cross browser testing supports various browsers and operating system combinations.
It is a free service. In Free account, access is limited to less than 5 minutes per session. You can also purchase credits for additional minutes. Subscriptions cost $29.95 for the first month, then $19.95 a month thereafter.
9. ieCapture
ieCapture provides screen shots of website in Internet Explorer 8 on windows XP SP2.
It is a free service.
10. Adobe Browserlab
https://browserlab.adobe.com/index.html
Browserlabs tests website on Firefox 2 and 3 and IE 6 and 7 for XP and test Firefox 2 and 3 and Safari 3 for OS X.
Adobe currently offering its as a Free service for preview.
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Danh ba web 2.0 June 23rd
Great collection. Thanks a lot
Keep up !
Dan Biggins June 23rd
Great resource – thanks a lot for this.
By the way, I don’t want to sound pedantic, but the Adobe Browserlab link doesn’t link anywhere…
Cheers,
Dan
Chuck June 23rd
i wonder why there isn’t a desktop application that can more or less real-time test HTML emailings source code in the most common email clients (web-based and desktop)…
Silver Firefly June 23rd
Thank you for this list. Bookmarked and I’ll tweet this page.
admin June 24th
Chuck,
There are few online tools like litmusapp.com, mailchimp.com, campaignmonitor.com, etc. but Yes I can not find any desktop application.
Sean June 25th
nice post. Also have a look at user agent switcher addon for firefox. It can emulate different browsers like IE7, Opera, etc from the same browser window.
Kim H June 26th
The only problem with these kinds of sites is that they only offer screenshots; for a Mac person like me I usually have to boot up another computer or switch over with BootCamp (I really should have just installed on Parallels but I didn’t want the additional cost after purchasing the XP license). They don’t tell you if that hover effect happens properly, or if that Ajax/jQuery plugin really works unless you test it yourself.
Browsershots, however, is a very good tool; there are also several Firefox plugins which allow for almost-instant screenshots of the sites.
Also, as a note, I’m not so sure about writing for Firefox 2 or other similar older browsers. Now, I could be wrong, but I do believe IE is the only one which does not allow an auto-update the way that Firefox and similar browsers almost force.
admin June 27th
Kim,
I understand your point. Browsercam also offers “remote access” service, a little pricey at $50~ per month, where you can select and connect to the remote machine of desired configuration (OS/Browser/Flash) and test your code there.
Hope this helps.
Dan July 10th
I just hope people stop using IE6. That will resolve majority of the compatibility issues.
Phil Smith August 21st
Cloud Testing – http://www.cloudtesting.com/ – offer a functional website testing and cross browser testing service that allows you to test your websites from the cloud.
Enterprise users can download an agent which allows access to your local resources, i.e. inside your firewall/network.
It is based on Selenium, and allows you to capture scripts in the Selenium IDE plugin for Firefox, and then upload onto our servers for running.
We currently support the following browsers:
Firefox 2, 3 & 3.5
Internet Explorer 6,7 & 8
Safari 3.2 & 4.0
Chrome 2 and 3
Opera 9.6 and 10.0
With all of the above we capture full screenshots (i.e. of the browser window, not just the OS window), store the HTML and details of components on each page, along with timings and HTTP request and response headers. All of this is available to view via the results portal – http://portal.cloudtesting.com/
A free 7 day trial is available – http://www.cloudtesting.com/free_trial.php
Demiurg August 24th
You may want to take a look at this new service http://www.browserseal.com
Since it is not a web service, but an application there is no need to wait at all and the interface is much more convenient. The downside is that it’s a new service which is currently in a very early beta stage and only a handful of browsers are supported.
At any rate, I thinks this new service is worth keeping an eye on, as it is being actively developed and new features as well as new browsers will be added in the future.
Demiurg August 26th
You may want to take a look at this new browser screenshot application – http://www.browserseal.com
Currently it only supports Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari on Windows, but as it is being actively developed more features and additional browsers will be added in the future.
Free beta version can be downloaded from http://www.browserseal.com
WP Themes December 27th
I deliberate on the post is good and on the point. This send indeed helped me in my assignment.
MrBarns February 6th
There is obviously a lot to learn. There are some good points here.
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