If you work in web application development, you’ve no doubt had to verify that the user experience performs roughly the same across Safari, Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer (and perhaps even Opera).
The first three rarely cause any pain when it comes to some of the more modern technologies used in client-side development, but it’s Internet Explorer – even the most recent version – that can cause a bit of pain.
While working to finish up a few projects this week, I realized that attempting to get multiple versions of that particular software on your machine is a hassle. Yes, there are alternatives such as BrowserLabs or VirtualBox, but if you’re running Windows then there’s one utility that I’ve found that’s gone a long way in helping me test a number of projects…
IETester a free tool that I use at home and work to help test out our projects in multiple versions of IE without getting bogged down in having to hack Windows to run three simultaneous versions of the browser.
Here’s Crunch running in three versions of IE all within the context of this program:
It runs as a single-process and includes options for IE5.5, IE6, IE7, and IE8. If you install the DebugBar, you get a minimal set of tools used to help inspect the site, scripts, and CSS.
Yes, you’re still subjected to IE’s cryptic JavaScript error messages and some of the other nuances that are typically associated with the browser, but it is a working, all-in-one solution for making sure that your audience – assuming the variation in versions of IE is wide – will have similar experiences across the board.
That said, I’m always looking for some alternative solutions for stuff like this. If you’ve got something, share it!
Michael Novotny says
Since my background is in Flash development, I haven’t cared much about cross browser testing. But since I’ve been getting into WordPress development, this is something that I’ve started to get very interested in…
IETester looks interesting! I haven’t an app like that before. I will most definitely check it out!
What I have been using up to this point are Utilu’s Collections (http://utilu.com/). They have an IE Collection (installs versions 1.0 – 8.0, http://utilu.com/IECollection/) and a Firefox Collection (installs versions 2.0 – 4.0 Beta 2, http://utilu.com/UtiluMFC/). Pretty handy to have them all at your testing disposal!
Tom says
Definitely! Thanks for these..