In today’s world of rapid advancements in technology businesses try to get the best results and they want their apps to run smoothly on all browsers and platforms. This is one of the major reasons why most web applications are designed to be accessed through multiple browsers.
Developers are generally partial towards a browser. According to their favoritism, they can debate for hours citing the reasons why their favorite browser is best for all the web development projects. They keep on working on their favorite browser ignoring that the code they have written is compatible with other browsers too.
Therefore, cross browser testing comes into the picture here. With the rapid increase in browsers, devices, and operating systems, it is good to incorporate cross-browser testing as part of the daily activity to make sure end users get the experience irrespective of the platform they are testing in.
What is Cross-Browser Testing?
Cross-browser testing is a type of testing to test if an application works across different browsers as expected. In cross-browser testing, we check the application’s compatibility with different browsers. It is a kind of non-functional testing that allows us to check whether the website works as required when accessed through different platforms.
- Different Browser Combinations: – Firefox, Edge, Chrome, Safari.
- Different OS Combinations: – Windows, macOS, iOS, Android.
- Different Devices: – Tablets, Smartphones, desktops, and laptops.
- Different Tools: – Various assistive tools and technologies for differently abled.
Why is Cross-Browser Testing Important?
Cross-browser testing gives a hassle-free user experience to the users. It allows us to involve a combination of browsers and operating systems to test the application’s sensibility and compatibility. Cross-browser testing helps us to track and fix bugs even after the code is deployed in production.
Let’s have a look at why cross-browser testing is important:
- It helps us easily compare the UI design and functionality across multiple browsers.
- It can make your web application compatible on different platforms like mobile, desktop, tablets, etc.
- It helps with consistent and easy navigation.
- With the help of cross-browser testing you get satisfied customers with better accessible websites.
- It also helps us with consistent behavior and a better user experience across various browsers and platforms.
How Is Cross-Browser Testing Done?
Now, you know about cross-browser testing, you can try executing a test. Let’s have a quick walkthrough of the steps involved:
- Create a Blueprint and a Baseline:- Before commencing the cross-browser testing, execute all the design and functionality tests on your primary browser, usually Chrome. This ultimately will give you an idea of what the website will originally look like.
- Create a test plan and choose the browsers to test on:- Create a test specification document to create an outline of what you’ll test. After creating an outline of the test plan, pick the browser and OS combinations to test based on popularity.
- Execution:- Cross-browser testing can be done with the help of two approaches Manual Cross-Browser testing and Automated Cross-Browser Testing. Let’s have a clear picture of both approaches.
1.Manual Cross-Browser Testing:- The manual approach uses various machines, operating systems, multiple browsers, executing the same test cases on different browsers again and again. In the manual approach, developers first identify the browsers that the application will properly support. Then the developers re-execute the test cases across different browsers to check the behavior of the application across different browsers and then find bugs in it.
The manual approach of cross-browser testing is not easy across every browser as it is very time-consuming. Also, there is a possibility that the application can be surely tested on all the major browsers with this technique. The biggest challenge here is to test your application on all the browsers and devices that are supported by your application.
With the help of the correct cross-browser testing strategy and by choosing the right cross-browser testing tool you can test the application almost on every browser. This again also is a challenge as it will require a lot of time, but Automated cross-browser testing comes to the rescue here.
2.Automated Cross-Browser Testing:- Automation testing is more like manual testing, it also requires running the same test case across multiple browsers. The only difference between manual cross-browser testing and automated-cross browser testing is that automated cross-browser testing uses an automation tool to make the process of the cross-browser testing process more manageable.
In automation testing, scripts are written by the testers to test the web application. It increases the efficiency and performance of the cross-browser testing process. Thus, it makes the process less challenging and less time-consuming. However, the most difficult thing in automated cross-browser testing is to choose the right automation tool.
There are various automation tools available in the market, out of which Selenium is considered to be one of the best testing frameworks for automation testing, as it provides support for multiple languages. Selenium Grid is one of the four major tools of Selenium that allows you to run tests on different machines across different browsers in parallel. The major challenge of using Selenium Grid is to maintain it in your local system and make it compatible with the browser versions.
This problem can be solved by using an online Selenium Grid. LambdaTest is an online Selenium Grid that provides all the browsers and Operating Systems in the cloud. There is no chaos in downloading the browser in your local system. With LambdaTest Selenium Grid, cross-browser compatibility can be tested on the cloud.See also Minecraft Servers For Hosting Minecraft
What is LambdaTest?
LambdaTest is a cloud-based cross-browser testing tool that helps you to perform cross-browser testing on a device farm of 3000 browsers, operating systems, and devices. Both manual and automated cross-browser testing can be done using LmbdaTest. It allows you to do both manual and automation testing. It is a scalable platform that helps in bringing the software testing needs to the cloud. By performing real-time cross-browser testing using LamdaTest, your web application is certainly compatible with almost every browser and device available. It also helps organizations in checking the responsiveness of the application and also takes full screenshots while performing testing.
- Infrastructure:- Web applications behave differently in different environments. When browsers are tested on different operating systems, you will need different devices. For this, you need to set up the testing infrastructure. There are ways to set up the testing infrastructure such as emulators, simulators, etc. Alternatively, if you can install a device lab of your own you can do so. Another way is to use a cloud-based testing infrastructure to run the tests in a remote lab.
Cross-Browser testing has made our jobs easier for checking the compatibility of the application across different browsers. But, there are certain Dos and don’ts that need to be followed while performing Cross-Browser Testing.
Top 5 Do’s and Don’ts Of Cross- Browser Testing
Top 5 Do’s Of Cross-Browser Testing:-
Let’s have a look at the Dos of Cross-browser testing. You must always ensure to incorporate these if you are performing cross-browser testing.
- Always use the appropriate tool for testing. This is a tough decision to make. But, there are many testing platforms available out there in the market, choosing one out of many is a crucial decision. The tool that you choose should depend on the requirements of the project.
- Always test before moving to a live environment. It is considered to be the best practice to perform cross-browser testing before going live publically. Always perform testing of your web application when it is hosted locally on your server.
- Always target browser-OS configurations. You must always find browsers on which you want to test your web application. This is the first and the foremost thing to take care of before you start the testing.
- Always Use Smart Tesch Ways for cross-browser testing. All the browsers behave differently for all the browser elements. Smart Tech Ways will help in producing the desired results.
- Use Emulators and Virtual Machines for testing across old and new browser combinations for checking the cross-browser compatibility. You can test your applications using emulators and virtual machines with very small effort.
Top 5 Don’ts OF Cross-Browser Testing
There are certain Don’ts that need to be kept in mind while performing cross-browser testing.
- Never Directly opt for an In-house Infrastructure setup. Setting up in-house infrastructure is not always feasible in every case, especially if a startup has a fixed budget. Many organizations are opting for a cloud-based approach in maintaining the OS, browsers, and devices at the initial stages to cut down the high cost of investment.
- It is a bad practice to test on too many browsers including the legacy ones. This is one of the major challenges that there are way too many browsers and their respective versions.
- Never execute your tests on multiple browsers manually. It will hog up your time and will lead to slow productivity. Use an automation tool instead for faster parallel testing as you have to test for different combinations of browser -versions. You can also use cross-browser testing platforms for faster parallel testing. It will help in saving a lot of time.
- Never skip keeping up with the new browser versions during cross-browser testing. Browsers keep on updating now and then and not keeping a check can lead to script failures. Thus, it is very much essential to keep your testing compatible with the latest browser versions.
- Never miss the DOCTYPE tag. It is vital as it helps create a smoothly rendered site. It also helps in preventing the occurrence of browser compatibility issues over and over again.
Wrapping Up
Cross-browser testing helps in creating a good impression on the users by providing them a consistent experience throughout the application irrespective of the browser or Operating System.
It is a continuous process as software environments, browsers and devices are evolving day by day and this cross-browser testing makes the work easier. Cross-browser testing also includes certain do’s and don’ts which are required to perform the testing.
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