You’re web site may look great in your favorite browser on your computer, but that doesn’t mean it will display well to everyone else who views it on Macs and Windows computers, using Firefox, or Safari, or Internet Explorer (in any of the many editions which display code differently).
Making your site lo0k good in all the web browsers out there is hard enough, now you have to test your sites on iPhones, Blackberries, and a wide range of other mobile devices.
If you don’t have multiple computers and phones or all the browsers in use on the web today, you can use one of the online simulators covered in this post to test your site — even if all you have is one web browser you can use to access the web site simulators.
Here are a few places you can use online browser testing tools:
The Browser Sandbox: By far my favorite online tool for testing web sites in different browsers on a computer screen, this site gives you the chance to surf through any site with the most popular browsers on the web. Just click on the browser you want to test with to launch IE, Firefox, or Safari (in multiple versions) as if the program were installed on your computer. Then enter a URL and see how it looks. It’s easy and robust.
BrowserShots.org — Enter any URL into this online tool and it will return a collection of screenshots of the site as it appears in a long list of browsers. You can pick and choose which browsers to test in, the more you choose, the longer it takes. You usually get results in 5 to 45 minutes (faster if you pay for their premium service).
For more advanced testing (albeit more time-consuming) visit CrossBrowserTesting.com where you can use ‘virtual machines’ to test your site on different operating systems and browsers. Want to see what your site looks like on IE 5 on Windows XP? (Brace yourself, it may not be pretty, but you can do it on this site). The biggest advantage of the CrossBrowserTesting.com is that you can experiment with interactive features on your sites, so you can see how drop-down menus, collapsible panels, animations, and other dynamic features will work in different environments (which can be far more useful than just how they look in a screenshot).
Now I’m looking for the best mobile phone emulators. If you know of any good places to test how a web site looks on a mobile phone, please email me janine@jcwarner.com
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Browser Sandbox: it’s supposed to be an in-browser testing suite, but it’s just links to the microsoft, firefox, safari and iphone websites.
That totally sucks.
Hi Dorian,
I think you’ve misunderstood how Browser Sandbox works. When you get to Browser Sandbox, those aren’t links to the Microsoft, Firefox, etc. web sites, they are links to simulators which let you surf as if you have those browsers on your own computer, even when you don’t. So when you click on IE 6 at Browser Sandbox, you’re not going to the Microsoft site, you’re launching a version of IE 6 that is hosted by Browser Sandbox and using it as if you’d downloaded it and installed it on your own hard drive. What’s most impressive is that you can’t even get IE 6 from the Microsoft site anymore.
Hi There
We all appreciate all the great help and advice but I think the person above (Dorian) is having the same problem I am. The sandboxes all say: -This service is unavailable on your device- and only link to the corresponding manufacturer websites
– sorry-
-Using Safari Version 4.0.4-
If anyone is curious and has tons of time on their hands check out the page I am having problems with. It works perfectly in Safari but seems to go mad in IE. You can view the source code. Any advice would be super and thanks in advance. John
http://www.sportscarz.co.uk/showroom.htm
Take a look at BrowserSeal – its a multi browser screenshot tool which comes with standalone versions of all major browsers.