Everything You Need to Know about Cross Browser Testing
There are now hundreds of browsers available on the market. The development and usage of different browsers have been a surprise and is highly dependent on the region and device being used.
There are, however, limitations to every new tech product on the market. In the wake of multiple browsers and an ever-increasing user base, browser compatibility issues have exploded like no one’s business. Tech giants came up with Cross Browser Testing as a solution to deal with browser compatibility issues.
What is Cross Browser Testing and why do we need it?
The technology has changed with time, resulting in the emergence of several browsers in the market, making web compatibility a problem. Cross-browser testing involves testing websites and web apps on all targeted browsers. Cross-browser testing helps validate that the site runs as smoothly as on other browsers.
Cross Browser Testing Challenges and Solutions
- It can be tedious and hectic to test on too many different browsers
One of the biggest challenges of cross-browser testing is maintaining a collection of multiple browsers with different versions. Many organizations cannot afford to host a large number of browser collections in-house.
To overcome this challenge, you should first familiarize yourself with your targeted browsers and browser versions.
- Testing too many combinations
A cross-browser test does not only involve testing on multiple browsers, but also with a variety of devices, browsers, versions, and operating systems. It would be impossible to maintain an in-house collection of devices, browsers, browser versions, and operating systems.
To overcome this challenge, a cloud-based cross-browser testing platform can offer multiple combinations of devices, browsers, browser versions, and operating systems with cloud-based automated testing capabilities can be used.
- Frequent updating of browsers
Browsers are constantly evolving and being updated. Chrome, for instance, probably gets updated every two months.
Keeping your automation suite browser-friendly is the key to overcoming this challenge. Automating the process of handling different browser versions is also important.
- In-house testing infrastructure setup can be a burden to maintain
An organization that has a huge product with a wide customer base may not find it feasible to set up an internal testing infrastructure.
Developing cross-browser tests manually and automating them is the best solution to overcome this challenge.
The use of virtual machines and emulators is not recommended for organizations with a large product that has a large customer base, as this will require a separate maintenance team.
Organizations may also opt to use the cloud-based cross-browser testing platform, which allows automated tests to be run against different environments in parallel to reduce execution time.
