The current year has been phenomenal for the software industry. For instance, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the business sector has shifted to online transactions. Thus, there has been an increase in the demand for new software’s and applications. Developers have a hard time keeping up with the growing market demands. However, a company cannot compromise the quality of the software in this competitive era. Thus, you have to test every feature of the application to ensure smooth operations. Furthermore, you also have to ensure that the application remains accessible on almost all devices.
Every company must remember that cross-browser testing is an essential part of the entire testing process. Various tools can help you to perform this operation. In this article, we will take a look at some of the best cross-browser tools.
What is Cross-Browser Testing?
Cross-browser testing is an important part of the non-functional testing system. In this process, the developers have to ensure that the website is fully functional and accessible irrespective of different platforms and browsers. It allows users to access the application on their devices. As a company, you must ensure that you do not limit user-based browser incompatibilities. Additionally, cross-browser testing also allows you to uplift user interactions on advanced web applications to easily justify the importance of cross-browser testing for every web application. In simple words, this is the only way to verify that the app functions on all platforms.
Browser compatibility is necessary to include various features in the web application. For instance, certain features like screen readers have to work smoothly on all web browsers to ensure that differently-abled people can access your application. Thus, you will need to perform cross-browser testing to ensure all these features are working properly and that there are no bugs in them. In the modern era, new browsers are emerging every single day. Thus, companies need to use this form of testing to ensure that they work properly on every browser.
Importance of Cross Browser Testing
All the major companies have shifted to Open Browser Standards for web browsing applications. This shift may be Universal, but the interpretation of the shift varies from company to company. The reason behind the differences is that every browser has its ideals for rendering a JavaScript or HTML website and is a severe issue for software testers. For instance, even if you perform rigorous testing on a browser, that would not ensure the same performance on all other browsers. Here it means that you have to test the application on every browser to ensure a seamless performance.
All the features of open browser standards come under the criteria of browser abstract differences. Cross-Browser Testing is extremely helpful for all these compatibility issues. This process allows you to quickly find all the errors and sort them out in a systematic manner.
The prime importance of cross-browser testing is that it allows you to provide a smooth experience to all your users irrespective of the devices and browsers. It can be dangerous to develop an application that is incompatible with some browsers. For instance, the company will lose a massive share of the market if your application fails to load completely or partially on any particular browser.
Thus cross-browser testing helps you to increase the reach of your web application. Additionally, it allows you to prevent the alienation of a user base segment due to browser incompatibilities. The basic principle of the software market is to have complete control over the entire user base. This process is the only way to grow in this competitive industry.
The areas to test in Cross-Browser Testing
Before starting cross-browser testing, you must create a strategy for the testing process. So, we have created a checklist that will help you in this segment.
- The page styles, along with data formats.
- Validation of CSS, HTML and XHTML formats.
- Alignment of images along with headers and footers.
- The smooth functioning of Ajax and jQuery, along with other visual elements.
Best Tools for Cross-Browser Testing
1. LambdaTest
The unique feature of LambdaTest is that it allows you to test the web application on over 2,000 browsers. It is a unique cloud-based test automation engine based on Selenium. It enables a scalable cloud grid. It also allows you to perform live interaction with the testing process. Let us take a look at some of the unique features of LambdaTest:
- You can run a selenium test script with scalable inputs on more than 2000 browser environments.
- LambdaTest allows automatic screenshots to keep a record of the responsive testing on your website.
- This unique testing engine allows you to test your privately hosted website using a special SSH tunnel.
- It has a unique integration for one-click bug login to track all your favorite bug tools like GitHub, Slack, Trello, etc.
- The reasonably priced plans of LambdaTest and some free plans allow all the new companies to grow in the testing market.
We recommend our readers to consider LambdaTest as their first choice. This unique set of features, along with the best customer support, makes it the best testing tool.
2. Browsershots
This innovative application allows you to test your software on every browser and operating system. It is one of the most widely used browser compatibility tools because of its numerous features and customizable options. For instance, you can customize the browser compatibility based on browser type, operating system, JavaScript, and color depth. Additionally, it also allows the availability of flash features based on the device and browser. In simple terms, you can test the compatibility with just the website URL.
You can repeat all the above tips for testing different browsers. This tool also allows you to check the compatibility of various versions of browsers and operating systems. Currently, it has support for 200 different browser versions.
The only major drawback of this service is the loading time for the final result. Additionally, this time increases when you select several browsers, and it might even display a Timeout error. Thus, this testing tool can affect your overall software development time. In the current year, companies expect timely delivery of high-quality applications. So, a prolonged development time can cause huge losses.
3. CrossBrowserTesting.com
It is one of the oldest forms of cross-browser testing. This unique software allows you to test your application on over 2000 real desktop and mobile browsers. It has various unique features like interactive testing abilities with live remote devices, visualizes your website on multiple browsers simultaneously, etc. Additionally, the Agile team can run quicker testing methods due to parallel testing interactions with CI tools, similar to Jenkins. Some of the popular features of this cross-browser testing tool are as follows:
- It allows you to test scripts using Selenium.
- You can also integrate the test scripts with your favorite framework to have a smooth and synchronized testing process.
- You can run the testing process with the help of screenshots and regression testing.
- It allows you to have complete access to all the developer tools extensions, such as Chrome dev tools.
Your testing team can reduce the development time with the help of Selenium and Appium cloud testing.
4. TestComplete
This unique testing tool allows you to automatically check the compatibility of a web application on different browsers and operating systems. As a tester, you can choose multiple programming languages for testing. For instance, you can choose either JavaScript or Python to record and replay all the functions necessary to create automated UI tests. Now, let’s take a look at some of the innovative functions of TestComplete:
- The Functional UI allows you to create test cases and complete them on every single browser.
- It allows you to access all the latest devices in real-time. Thus, you can test your website compatibility with varying resolutions, browsers, and operating systems.
- You can run the test in over 1,000 testing environments without any setups or initial configuration.
- It allows you to keep visual control over the entire testing process with the life activity log.
5. Turbo Browser Sandbox
Turbo Browser Sandbox is a unique cross-browser testing tool. Using this software, you can test your web application’s compatibility on various browsers without installing them on your desktop. For instance, you can run a responsive test on popular browsers like Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, and Opera from your web. This process saves a lot of time and investment as you don’t have to pay the licensing fees for every browser you want to test. During the Turbo browser’s initial years, it was a free service, but it is now a premium tool as they support most of the browsers in the market. The price of the plans is quite justified compared to the loads of features that they offer.
It also allows you to set up virtual machines for free. Thus, you can test your application on the latest browsers that have just been released to the industry.
- IE NetRenderer
IE NetRenderer is a free to use browser compatibility tool. This amazing tool allows you to test your web application on all the versions of Microsoft Explorer. In this software, you have to choose the Internet Explorer version you want to test from the drop-down list. Next, you have to put the URL of your website and start the rendering process. It also allows you to instantly verify the screenshot of the page under the test option.
There is also a new version that is available as an add-on to test the compatibility on Firefox. This new version allows you to render the page that you are currently reading on your web browser. Many start-up companies are investing in this software, as it is a completely free to use service. Furthermore, this does not require the installation of any other third-party applications.
The Verdict
So, we can conclude that cross-browser testing is an essential part of modern testing standards. As a company, you must ensure that applications are accessible to all the users irrespective of browser or OS barriers. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has stressed the importance of universal availability in application standards. As a company or individual developer, this is the perfect time to grow your online sector stand. Lastly, we would recommend all our readers to consider LambdaTest as the ultimate tool for Cross-browser compatibility testing. Lambdatest has been diligently serving the software testing industry for decades now.