Cross-browser testing is an indispensable aspect of the modern web development process. With the plethora of browsers, versions, and devices available today, ensuring that web applications provide a consistent user experience across the spectrum can be daunting. This challenge is compounded by the ever-evolving nature of web technologies, demanding continuous testing and updating. Fortunately, tools like Selenium have revolutionized the automation of these tests, allowing for efficient and comprehensive evaluations. When combined with LambdaTest, a cloud-based testing platform, testers and developers can streamline their cross-browser testing workflows, ensuring that web applications are not only functional but also optimized for a wide array of browser-device combinations.
What Is Cross-Browser Testing?
Cross-browser testing is a form of functional testing that verifies the compatibility of websites and web applications across multiple browsers. This testing ensures that a website functions correctly across widely-used browsers, making it accessible to a broader audience irrespective of their device, operating system, or screen resolution.
Variations that might be observed across browsers include image display, positioning of user input fields, JavaScript behaviour, font dimensions, and webpage layout. Moreover, specific browsers might not be compatible with certain operating systems. Through cross-browser testing, software testers can identify and rectify such discrepancies, enhancing the overall user experience.
Why Use Selenium For Cross-Browser Testing?
Selenium stands out as a prominent tool for automating cross-browser testing. Using Selenium, developers can evaluate web applications across diverse operating systems and browser setups, ensuring consistent user experiences irrespective of the browser or OS employed. Automating tests with Selenium not only streamlines the process but also unlocks an extensive array of tools and functionalities. Its flexibility allows it to mimic a variety of test scenarios and user journeys.
One of the reasons Selenium is favoured for cross-browser testing is its comprehensive suite of tools, which includes:
Selenium WebDriver: This provides browser-specific bindings for multiple languages, furnishing an interface where an array of methods can be defined and utilized for comprehensive testing.
Selenium IDE: An extension that simplifies the process of recording browser interactions and replaying scripts.
Selenium Grid: A tool designed to execute numerous test cases concurrently across a vast spectrum of browsers, operating systems, and devices. This not only expedites the testing process but also easily scales with growing test suites.
Major Cross-Browser Testing Challenges And Their Solutions
Cross-browser testing is an essential process in web development to ensure that a website or web application functions correctly and consistently across different web browsers and their various versions. Here are some major challenges in cross-browser testing and their potential solutions:
Lack Of Testing On Real Devices
The old adage holds true: there’s no substitute for the real thing. While a website may appear flawless in a simulated environment, genuine testing on actual browsers and devices is the most effective way to ensure its seamless operation for users. Virtual machines can’t replicate the unique capabilities of native device features.
Yet, consistently testing on up-to-date devices and browsers can be both challenging and costly, especially if one relies on a personal device lab. This is where platforms like LambdaTest come in, bridging this gap by offering immediate access to a vast cloud of over 3000 device-browser pairings. Users can effortlessly assess their website’s compatibility and adaptability by simply logging in and picking their desired testing combinations. No fuss about updates or maintenance; users just select and test.
Automating Cross-Browser Testing Is Not Easy
Automating cross-browser testing can seem like a miracle solution, especially when dealing with numerous browser updates and varying browser-OS-device combinations. However, the process is far from straightforward. Selecting an appropriate automation tool is a complex task, given the pivotal role such a tool plays in expediting web app release cycles and examining app functionality.
While tools like Selenium might appear to simplify the testing process, executing automated cross-browser testing requires more effort. This includes crafting test scripts, determining script capabilities, and more. It’s also vital to consider responsive design testing, browser compatibility, and layout testing. Using screenshot comparisons often emerges as an effective way to pinpoint variations. Yet, this method poses challenges due to dependencies on browser UI elements and the resolution of the original image.
To effectively navigate the intricacies of cross-browser testing, the key is to select an automation tool tailored for such tasks. This tool should efficiently test web apps across a range of up-to-date browser-OS pairings, possess video recording capabilities, and capture high-resolution screenshots, among other features. LambdaTest stands out as a cloud-based solution designed to help users address these challenges.
Running Parallel Tests On Different Browsers
Why do we use automation tools? While there are numerous advantages, a paramount purpose is to execute parallel tests. This dramatically slashes the time needed for tests by concurrently assessing web applications across varied browser-OS-device combinations, a task which would be daunting if done manually. Numerous tools, like Selenium, are available in the market for this kind of parallel testing. Parallel testing offers the ability to simultaneously run multiple tests, swiftly identifying application glitches with minimal human input.
LambdaTest is another noteworthy player in this domain. Far from being just another cross-browser testing solution, LambdaTest stands out by providing an integrated setting for parallel testing. With LambdaTest, teams can streamline their testing across diverse browser combinations, ensuring their web applications serve a broad user base seamlessly. Features like its user-friendly dashboard, real-time bug detection, and seamless integration with other leading tools make it a top pick for many businesses.
Integrating LambdaTest into one’s testing strategy allows teams to fully exploit the advantages of parallel testing, guaranteeing a uniform user experience across all devices and platforms.
In-House Infrastructure
One predominant challenge that many enterprises, particularly startups and small businesses, grapple with in cross-browser testing is the establishment and oversight of in-house infrastructure. The upkeep of such infrastructure is not only time-intensive, but also manually orchestrating and executing automated tests through a sequence of scripts can be daunting.
For effective web application testing, it’s crucial for the testing team to constantly update browsers, their versions, operating systems, and the latest devices. Handling all these aspects requires a proficient team, which can significantly elevate costs. In light of these challenges, turning to Cloud-based infrastructure management early on emerges as a cost-effective and pragmatic approach.
Tools like LambdaTest, an AI-powered test orchestration and test execution solution, internally manage a vast array of browsers across different versions for both mobile and desktop platforms. This not only reduces the initial setup and upkeep expenses but also considerably lightens the load for testers and developers. Cloud-based testing tools are advantageous due to their cost-friendly updates, seamless integration with renowned third-party applications, real-time interactive testing, constant availability of shared data resources, and a host of other features.
Handling Frequent Browser Updates
A major challenge in cross-browser testing, frequently encountered by business leaders, is the rapid evolution of technology. To keep pace with technological advancements, systems must be consistently updated; otherwise, they risk malfunctioning. Most browsers roll out updates every 6-8 weeks, compelling testers to incessantly evaluate applications to ensure that users remain free from cross-browser compatibility concerns with the latest iterations.
Complicating matters, certain browsers update automatically, leaving users oblivious to these changes. To compound the challenge, browsers don’t release updates simultaneously. This means you’re updating and testing your website each time a browser releases a new version, approximately every 6-8 weeks. This necessitates that testers constantly adjust test scripts in line with each update. It’s far from simple.
Occasionally, testers might bypass testing until an issue emerges, only to later grapple with amplified cross-browser compatibility problems in the web application. To navigate these hurdles, testers could harness the power of automation testing using tools like Selenium and LambdaTest. Despite the inherent challenges, this strategy offers the most robust solution to address frequent browser updates.
Testing On Too Many Browsers Is Not Easy
One of the predominant challenges in cross-browser testing is the sheer diversity of browsers, each with multiple versions and varying system prerequisites. Managing all these browsers, their distinct versions, and the associated hardware is a daunting task. The frequent updates to these versions add another layer of complexity, making it hard to keep everything current and ensure optimal website functionality.
A web application’s smooth performance on one browser doesn’t guarantee its compatibility across all other browsers. Given that each browser possesses its unique rendering mechanism, behaviour, and set of glitches, they display websites differently. For instance, an application might function differently when accessed via various browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Internet Explorer, especially across different operating systems such as MacOS, Windows, and Linux. Most users don’t consistently update their browsers.
Reflect on the number of times you’ve personally updated your browser or OS; the permutations grow, amplifying the testing challenge. Merely testing, without even addressing bug fixes, can take upwards of an hour, underscoring the magnitude of this cross-browser testing quandary.
To address this challenge, begin by assessing whether it’s necessary to test your web application across all possible combinations or you can selectively choose specific ones. A basic analytical tool can provide insights into your website’s visitor demographics, revealing their preferred browsers and operating systems. Armed with this data, you can craft a strategic approach to cross-browser testing that includes prioritizing certain tests and focusing on combinations that encompass the majority of your user base. If you aim to ensure compatibility across all combinations, LambdaTest serves as a prime tool, facilitating website testing across a plethora of combinations via the online Selenium Grid.
Layout Compatibility Issue
As mentioned previously, each browser interprets and renders web pages based on its inherent layout styling. However, developers often use CSS Reset to override these defaults and implement their desired designs. This, in turn, can create cross-browser compatibility challenges for testers. These issues might arise due to designs not adapting well to mobile devices or the latest browser versions not supporting certain features. While previously addressing these challenges was more cumbersome, today, there are more straightforward solutions. One such method is using floats, which modern browsers support.
Yet, it’s essential to remember that while floats can position images dynamically, they come with certain restrictions. Alternative solutions like CSS grids and Flexbox layout mechanisms, supported by contemporary browsers, can be employed to rectify layout compatibility concerns. Keep in mind that leveraging a cloud-based platform like LambdaTest, which enables testing on Selenium Grid, can streamline the process even more effectively.
Conclusion
It’s vital to ensure that every web application performs optimally across various browsers. And this goal brings along its set of challenges, often making the roles of testers and developers quite demanding. Our article was all about expert recommendations on navigating these challenges, aiming to simplify and make cross-browser testing more manageable. Happy testing!
Reference Links:
https://www.lambdatest.com/blog/cross-browser-testing-challenges/
https://testsigma.com/blog/top-3-challenges-in-cross-browser-testing-and-how-to-tackle-them/
https://www.functionize.com/blog/how-to-deal-with-the-challenges-of-cross-browser-testing
https://www.browserstack.com/guide/common-cross-browser-compatibility-issues
https://www.qaratest.com/blogs/top-cross-browser-testing-challenges-and-how-to-overcome-them
https://www.blogvwant.com/top-challenges-of-cross-browser-testing/
https://saucelabs.com/resources/blog/cross-browser-testing-with-selenium
https://www.pcloudy.com/blogs/top-cross-browser-testing-challenges-and-ways-to-fix-them/
