With a wide range of browsers available in today’s market, cross browser testing plays a major role in the software testing process. We might have noticed that some web applications or websites are not properly displayed on some browsers; at the same time performs well on opening on a different browser. This is because each browser interprets the information differently. Moreover, we cannot restrict a user to use a specific browser to access a web application. Hence it has become necessary to test a web or a mobile application on different browsers before it is deployed.
Cross browser testing is the process of testing a web application functionality and design or a website across multiple platforms and browsers to provide a consistent experience to the end users.
The main intention of cross browser testing is to provide the users access to all the contents on the web page and execute the functions on the website smoothly. It also helps to compare the appearance of the web page across different browser platforms and mobile devices and to identify potential discrepancies, if any.
Cross browser testing can be done manually as well as using tools. Testing can be done manually on multiple browsers, multiple operating systems and multiple machines. All test cases are executed manually multiple times on different browsers. There are also tools available in the market which helps to run the same test cases multiple times on multiple browsers.
The best time to carry out cross browser testing is when each page of the application gets ready. This helps to fix the errors in the early stages of development and hence cost-effective. Like other types of testing, cross browser testing also helps in improving the quality of the software application and create happy customers by providing a consistent user experience of the application irrespective of the browser or operating system used.