Testing web pages in different browsers

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lydell

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Iscritto: 04/20/2014

Let’s say that you worked for a company which develops web sites for its customers. The company only uses and produces free software. So far so good.

However, it is important that web sites work for as many people as possible.

The best way to do so, is to follow the HTML standard and make sure that the site works without CSS and JavaScript. That’s a good foundation.

Still, CSS and JavaScript will inevitably be written. It needs to be tested.

The problem is that not everyone uses free software; some do not know the difference, some are stuck with an old Internet Explorer at work, and some people say they prefer Chrome or whatever. (Note: I do not promote any of the mentioned browsers.)

Apart from CSS and JavaScript, you might also want to test to connect to your server with different browsers, as they might send different headers.

How would you approach this problem? Is it OK to install proprietary browsers for testing purposes, just as it is said to be OK to use proprietary software for reverse engineering purposes? Does that compromise the whole system? Can you run them in some kind of sandbox? What could an “ideal” solution and a “practical” solution be? Does anyone have experience with this?

Jabjabs
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Iscritto: 07/05/2014

This is a tough situation to be in and while you can't get all the users to use a Free browser you can at least try and build it to be as close to the standards as possible.

That said...

http://www.globalnerdy.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/how-to-tell-html-from-html5.jpg

lydell

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Iscritto: 04/20/2014

Yes, coding close to the standards sure is the way to go. But still, browsers have bugs that you sometimes cannot predict, and sometimes you might use something not yet supported by a specific browser. You almost *have* to test in actual browsers to catch such things.

Ctwx

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Iscritto: 01/01/2015

As a web developer, I'd be more pragmatic here. As jabjabs wrote, you can't get all the users to use Free Software. And you're earning money from it. So, I'd say: try to use Free Software as much as possible but not at any cost.

You could use a different machine or a virtual machine for non Free Software browsers; that way your machine remains clean.

tomlukeywood
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Iscritto: 12/05/2014

this website may help:
http://browsershots.org/

Ctwx

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Iscritto: 01/01/2015

Very nice! I didn't know this site. Thanks for sharing!

lydell

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Iscritto: 04/20/2014

Thanks for sharing. There is also https://browserling.com/ and I’m sure I’ve seen other similar services. However, two questions comes to mind:

1. If doing any serious development, I think using the actual browser locally is a must. Anything else would be too slow in the long run (and possibly too expensive).

2. Is it more “OK” to run proprietary software remotely this way than on your own machine? What is the difference?

lydell

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Iscritto: 04/20/2014

Is there a virtual machine I can use with Trisquel?

Ctwx

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Iscritto: 01/01/2015

Have a look at KVM. See the Wiki page: https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/virtualization-using-kvm

Calinou
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Iscritto: 03/08/2014

There are various (usually paid) sites that let you test sites with all browsers without installing anything.