How to check if a website displays well across multiple browsers and operating systems
For your diverse audience
Good quality web design ensures the site works in all common browsers and systems (including Windows, OS 10 and Linux) and appears in all browsers in exactly the same way. This is a challenge for many webmasters. Inferior websites are only tested in Internet Explorer or Firefox and as a result, the site will contain errors or be slightly different in other browsers or other systems. There are fortunately several software and online solutions made available to website designers (html and CSS) to control many different browsers, different version numbers and different systems. Below is a list of tools and programs that perform a Cross browser check for potential problems.
1. Install all current browsers
The first option is to install all the different browsers on your computer. The problem is that you can not always install older versions of a browser simultaneously on a computer.
Latest versions of the 5 major browsers:
Offline cross compatibility check
There are tools available to check if your site displays properly in older Internet Explorer browsers:
- Microsoft Expression Web 3 Super Preview (Only IE 6, IE 7 en IE 8 )
- IE Tester
Online cross compatibility check
And finally, there are several websites / online tools you can use to view a particular website within the various browsers. The disadvantage is that you often have to wait before you see results.This can be very annoying if you have a tight deadline.
- Browsershots (Multpile browsers at the same time!)
- Browser Sandbox
- Netrenderer (Limited posibilities)
- Adobe Browserlab (Currently in beta with limited access)
- Browsercam (Requires login)
- Browsrcamp (1 browser at a time)
- Cross Browser Testing (Requires payment)
- Litmus (Requires payment)
- IE Capture (1 browser at a time)
The above list is not exhaustive. It does, however, show most open source or free options. Paid programs were listed because they offered the best value vs cost.
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