Cross browser compatibility checking
When creating web sites you should always check it works in the most popular browser, if not you are going to reduce the number of poeple visiting your site.
Why check your site? Well the fact is, if a user enters your site and it doesent render correctly, they will most definatly leave, ignoring your content. That is why browser testing is so important.
Currently Internet explorer is the most used browser, but standards based, free browsers such as Firefox are caching up.
Browsers to test in
The main browsers, in my opinion are:
- Safari (mac)
- Opera
- Firefox
- IE 5/6/7
IE7 is also due for release soon (at the moment it is in beta), as is Opera 9.
How do I test?
Download the browsers! You can get copies of IE, Firefox and opera from the web easily.
- Opera – http://www.opera.com/
- IE – http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie
- Firefox – http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/
Important things to look for when viewing sites are the navigation and the content, as these are perhaps the most important elements on the page.
How do I test safari?
Safari is a MAC based browser. On a windows machine? I found an excellent site for testing Safari, it is web based and generates a screen shot of your site in real time!
http://www.snugtech.com/safaritest/
All you have to do is input your URL and click view! Easy.
How do I test old versions of IE?
IE testing is made difficult by the fact that you can only run 1 version of IE on a computer.
However their are ways to get around this, for example running a virtual windows (try vm ware).
The best solution I have found are the standalone versions of IE at evolt. These run alongside your current installation of IE. The only downside to these is that they have poor support for conditional statements (a type of hack for older versions od IE).
Of course finding errors is completely different to fixing them…but fixing errors is for another article…
So there you go, get testing your site and see if it is cross-browser compatible!
Found this post useful? Why not buy me a coffee!
João Craveiro says:
For Linux users, for multi-IE testing, there’s IEs 4 Linux—a script that deals with downloading the IEs the user chooses (5.0, 5.5 and 6.0 are available) and setting it up with WINE.
Discovered your blog today; congratulations, almost every post catched my attention. Will come back regularly, for sure.
Comment made on February 9, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Mike J says:
Thanks thats very nice of you
This post is quite old, now i use the standalone versions of IE at evolt.
Comment made on February 9, 2007 at 4:21 pm
João Craveiro says:
Yes, I noticed its age (I just kept reading through the articles, and this was the first I went on to comment).
Comment made on February 9, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Mike J says:
Ye, lol, they progressively get better, my writing has improved alot
Comment made on February 9, 2007 at 4:25 pm