Ensuring cross-browser compatibility is crucial for apps to function always throughout one-of-a-kind browsers and gadgets, addressing variations in rendering and interpretation. This involves meticulous validation of the internet site’s HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to preserve consistent speed and appearance across numerous browsers. This testing phase is crucial to deliver unbroken consumer enjoy, no matter the person’s browser choice.
Incompatibility with specific browsers can lead to functionality issues, potentially driving users away and harming business and brand reputation. Additionally, it may prevent some users from accessing the site altogether.
This blog will explore browser compatibility testing, the causes of cross-browser compatibility issues, the importance of maintaining compatibility for businesses, and the correct methods for cross-browser testing.
What is Cross-Browser Compatibility Testing?
Cross-browser compatibility is a vital feature of software that ensures a website or internet utility works effectively and continually across various browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. Each browser has its rendering engine and unique way of interpreting code, which may cause differences in how a webpage is displayed and its capabilities.
The first intention of go-browser compatibility testing is to offer a continuing and uniform consumer revel, no matter the browser site visitors use. This entails thoroughly testing capabilities, layouts, and functionalities to identify and solve discrepancies or problems in one-of-a-kind browser environments. By performing this testing, builders and QA teams can find and connect compatibility problems, improving the accessibility and usability of the web application for a broader target audience.
Cross-browser compatibility testing ensures that your website’s features and functionality are accessible to users across various browsers, operating systems, devices, and assistive tools. The diversity of technologies in web development has led to a wide range of tools and browsers for rendering web content.
However, due to compatibility issues among these technologies, websites may behave differently on various browsers. Browser compatibility testing ensures a consistent user experience across all platforms.
What Leads to Browser Compatibility Issues?
In 1994, Netscape launched the first version of its browser, dominating the market until Internet Explorer arrived, marking the first official browser war. Internet Explorer remained the market leader despite the emergence of Opera and other browsers.
In 2003, Apple launched Safari, replacing Netscape as Apple’s default browser. The following year, Mozilla introduced Firefox, an open-source browser, and in 2008, Google launched Chrome. These new entries significantly reduced Internet Explorer’s market share.
Internet Explorer did not adhere to W3C guidelines, causing websites built during its dominance to encounter rendering issues in other browsers. This discrepancy led to the emergence of browser compatibility issues.
Each browser was developed with its unique intentions and technologies. Today, active browsers use different rendering and JavaScript engines, resulting in varied website rendering. For instance, Google Chrome and Opera use Blink, while Safari uses WebKit.
Each browser interprets HTML, JavaScript, and CSS differently, often producing varying results. Occasionally, this can lead to a website not functioning correctly in a specific browser.
Why is Cross Browser Compatibility Important for Websites?
Every business aims to expand digitally. Cross-browser compatibility is essential to ensure enterprises provide a seamless experience to every consumer, regardless of the device or browser they use to access the web. This allows users to visit the website from any browser, browser version, device, or operating system.
User experience: Browser compatibility is crucial to a website’s functionality and overall user experience.
Edge out on competition: By including legacy macOS X in your testing list, you can offer a better experience to 12.2% of users worldwide, which your competitor might overlook. Accessibility across various web environments enhances your competitive advantage.
Geolocation and browser popularity: Even if a small percentage of internet users use a particular browser, it can represent a significant user base. Ensuring compatibility can, therefore, reach a vast group of users.
Browser usage varies by geolocation. For instance, while Chrome, Safari, and Edge are the most popular browsers globally, focusing only on these may be misleading when launching a website in China.
Browser version and usage: Not everyone immediately updates to the latest browser version when available, so compatibility with older versions is also essential.
Mobile device rise: In the second quarter of 2022, 58.99% of web traffic came from mobile devices, so ensuring mobile browser compatibility is crucial.
Brand reputation: A website reflects a company’s brand. Poor browser compatibility can lead to significant losses, as a bad website experience translates to a negative brand perception.
Performance and SEO: Incompatible websites are less accessible, negatively impacting SEO rankings. Browsers consider visitor numbers to determine a webpage’s relevance. If particular web elements don’t work on some browsers, it can lead to a high bounce rate, further affecting overall rankings.
To fully grasp this, it’s essential to understand browsers and their workflows.
How do Browsers Work?
Browsers are software that enables users to interact with content on the World Wide Web. Understanding how browsers and rendering engines work is essential for browser compatibility issues.
Here is a common workflow for any browser:
1. Loading Content: When a user opens a website, the networking layer retrieves the content of the documents and sends it to the rendering engine, which creates a content tree.
2. Parsing HTML: The rendering engine parses the HTML components and transforms them into DOM (Document Object Model) nodes, forming a content tree. It also processes internal and external CSS to create the render tree using visual and styling data.
3. Render Tree Construction: In the render tree, rectangles with specific colors and sizes are placed correctly to ensure they appear properly on the screen.
4. Layout Stage: After constructing the render tree, the browser moves to the layout stage, where it calculates the coordinates for each node to be displayed on the screen.
5. Painting: The final step is painting, typically done in a specific order. According to the UI’s backend layer code, each node in the render tree is created and displayed on the screen.
Understanding this workflow helps identify and address browser compatibility issues.
How to Strategize Cross-Browser Testing?
To perform cross-browser testing, you need to research and plan. Consider your target audience and identify which browsers they are using. Cross-browser testing aims to find bugs and ensure the website functions correctly. The testing process generally involves three steps:
Developing a website: Focus on a specific audience, device, and purpose throughout development.
Testing in the local environment: After development, developers pass the website to testers for testing in a local environment before deployment.
Testing across all browsers: Once the local testing phase is cleared, testers ensure compatibility across all browsers and web environments that the target audience may use to access the website.
Here is the strategy to make cross-browser testing faster and easier:
Selecting browsers and test scenarios: Begin by researching browsers, as discussed earlier. Prioritize testing critical scenarios first due to higher bug probability. Consider factors such as time requirements, test data analysis, and test execution tools. When critical issues arise, testers may escalate them to developers for resolution.
Using virtual machines and emulators: It is advisable to establish a virtual environment with varied browser settings and operating system versions. Emulators and virtual machines effectively simulate different browsers. For comprehensive cross-browser testing, employ add-ons or browser extensions as needed.
Mobile-first approach: Given the increasing use of mobile devices, ensure the website’s compatibility with mobile platforms. Testing on actual mobile devices provides the most accurate results, although testing and development teams from external sources often use emulators.
Automation and parallel test execution: Automate testing with frameworks like Selenium, Cypress, and Playwright to streamline test execution. Automation reduces manual effort, minimizes repetitive tasks, and mitigates human errors. Implement parallel testing to optimize test execution time across multiple browsers and devices simultaneously.
These steps outline effective strategies for intelligent and efficient cross-browser testing, ensuring robust results with significant impact.
Read also: Best Tools for Mobile Site Testing
How LambdaTest Help Scale Your Browser Testing?
You can accelerate your testing process using LambdaTest’s cloud platform, which is renowned for its speed and efficiency in cross-browser testing. Here’s how LambdaTest can benefit you:
- Conduct real-time browser testing across over 3000 browser, operating system, and device combinations.
- Access real devices from LambdaTest’s device cloud to test your website on physical hardware.
- Implement parallel testing to significantly reduce execution time by running tests concurrently.
- Utilize HyperExecute for rapid execution, potentially cutting execution times up to 70%.
- Track and gather comprehensive test-related data using LambdaTest’s test analytics tools.
LambdaTest offers a robust solution for comprehensive and efficient cross browser testing. It ensures thorough compatibility across diverse platforms and enhances overall testing productivity.
End Note
The digital world is dynamic, with frequent updates introducing new versions, devices, operating systems, and technologies every year.
With each update, certain elements may become deprecated while others gain cross-browser compatibility that was previously lacking. This highlights the critical importance of cross-browser testing to ensure websites function seamlessly across different browsers.
