In the current digitalization scenario, a website is the front card for any organization or company. Users must visit a company website to check what it’s all about and its services. So, your website must be increasingly user-friendly, providing a smooth and hassle-free experience. If not, the users will shift to others similar to their needs.
A website should be easily compatible with all web browsers and their versions. You can not restrict the crowd to using only a specific web browser. To meet this requirement, cross-browser testing is done. Cross-browser testing verifies whether an application works across different browsers as expected and degrades effectively.
Cross-browser testing can be done using Selenium and JavaScript. You can also perform cross-browser testing using cloud-based utilities. Using cloud-based utilities helps increase testing efficiency as it improves testing, scalability, reliability, reduces cost, etc. In this article, you will learn about cross-browser testing and its various aspects. Then, you will see how to perform cross-browser testing using Selenium and JavaScript.
What is Cross-Browser Testing
Cross-browser testing is a software application testing process that ensures that web applications work as expected across many combinations of web browsers, operating systems, and devices. As we know, web browsers have different support features for website components. Hence, cross-browser testing aims to increase this compatibility score by testing the features for other web browsers using testing tools and frameworks. Now, let us briefly see the various types of cross-browser testing.
Types of Cross-Browser Testing
Cross-browser testing is majorly divided into two types, which are as follows:
- Backward Compatibility Test
Backward compatibility testing is a type of cross-browser compatibility testing, also known as downward compatibility. It involves testing older versions of an application or software to verify its successful performance with newer hardware/software. Backward compatibility tests are important because some users may operate the application on old devices.
- Forward Compatibility Test
A forward compatibility test is used to check whether the web application or website will be compatible and supported with the future version of that software. It also checks whether the working and functionality will remain consistent and seamless as they are now. This type of testing is also called “upward compatibility testing” and “future compatibility testing.”
Introduction to Cross-Browser Testing Using Selenium
As we know, millions of users across the globe use many web browsers. You can not restrict users to a specific web browser to access a web application or website. It’s unfair to ask users to access your application with a specific browser. If you want to make your application popular and a huge number of users use it, you need to make your web application compatible with all the devices and various web browsers. Since numerous web browsers are available in the market, it depends on the user which web browser they choose for a specific web application or website. Different users find different web browsers easy to surf and access.
Testing engineers and developers must make your web app compatible with market demand. Test engineers must ensure that the web app will work without malfunctioning on all the widely used web browsers. This urges testing the application code on different platforms. Here comes the cross-browser testing in light. The testing team can either go with manual testing or use the Selenium WebDriver automated tool to make the testing process much more efficient in less time.
Introduction to Selenium
Selenium is an open-source framework that is widely used for website cross-browser testing. It is the most popular and most recommended tool for website automation testing. The main objective of Selenium is to simulate the actions of users within the application, which helps to get real feedback and works on the detected bugs and errors. Selenium is not just a single entity. It is a complete testing suite that has many options, such as:
- IDE: It is basically an environment that provides an interface for writing and implementing testing codes.
- Grid: Selenium Grid is defined as a smart proxy server that makes it easy to run tests in parallel on multiple machines. It is achieved by routing commands to remote web browser instances, where one server acts as the hub.
- WebDriver: Selenium WebDriver provides a wide range of commands for automating web applications. This robust tool helps developers and QA teams interact with web pages more efficiently and securely. By using the WebDriver API, developers can access and control web elements on a page, which allows them to write and design automated tests easily.
Installing and Setting Up the Selenium WebDriver for Cross Browser Testing
We need to go through the following steps to perform the installation and setup.
1. Download and Install Java
First, you need to install the Java version from the official website. So that you can use Java for automation testing. There are separate configurations available for Windows and Mac. You can install the Windows x64 installer JDK. Click the “Download” button to download the latest version according to your operating system. After the download is complete, initiate the installation process. You can use the command “java -version” in your command prompt to check whether Java is installed.
2. Setting the Environment Variables
After installing the Java version, you need to install the environment variables. Go to the PC setting option, and click “advanced system setting”. Click on the environment variables. Under the System variable, select the path and click on the Edit button. Now, set the complete Java path and click on save. Download the language bindings for your WebDrivers from the official Selenium website.
3. Installing the WebDrivers
The next step is to install the WebDriver. Installing a web driver for a specific browser is necessary to use Selenium to interact with that browser.
4. Installing the IDE.
The last step is to install the IDE. IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is an interface where you can write your code more easily and enhance the code readability by providing various features.
Setting up Selenium WebDriver using Java
Now, let’s examine the various steps required to perform Selenium cross-browser testing with JavaScript. You can build tools such as Maven and Gradle to manage the dependencies. You can also manually install the JAR file from the Selenium official website.
// System Property for Chrome Driver
System.setProperty(“webdriver.chrome.driver”,”D:\\ChromeDriver\\chromedriver.exe”);
// Instantiate a ChromeDriver class.
WebDriver driver=new ChromeDriver();
Then, you need to install the IDE. An integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that helps programmers develop software code efficiently.
Best Practices to Perform Cross-Browser Testing with Selenium and JavaScript
If you want to perform cross-browser testing efficiently and get the best possible result, there are some best practices that testing experts follow. Let’s have a brief look at these best practices.
- One of the best practices for performing cross-browser testing with JavaScript and Selenium is to choose the automation tool and framework wisely. The most recent CSS or JS frameworks might not be compatible with all browsers. This is a very important step while creating the application. Because every web browser has different rendering engines, you must check the testing requirements and needs.
- Optimized for Internet Explorer. As we know, Internet Explorer does not support various advanced CSS styles and frameworks. This causes the elements to be distorted, and the visual will differ from what was expected. To rectify this issue, you are advised to create a separate stylesheet for IE and add some hacks to the doctype.
- Employ Relevant JavaScript Library and Task Runners. As we know, JavaScript is a crucial part of app development. So, you must employ the appropriate JavaScript resources for automation cross-browser testing. It will help complete the website’s needs and provide consistent compatibility across various browsers.
- Applying the concept of parallel testing in the testing process is another useful and recommended best practice for Selenium automation testing with JavaScript. The testing team can run numerous cross-browser tests using parallel resources in this concept. This helps them speed up testing. Also, testing efficiency increases many times, delivering fast results.
- It is always better to perform cross-browser testing on the cloud for scalability and reliability. One such platform that can be used is LambdaTest.
LambdaTest is a comprehensive test orchestration and execution platform that leverages artificial intelligence to facilitate the seamless and efficient running of manual and automated tests on a large scale. Focusing on providing a versatile testing environment, LambdaTest empowers users to conduct both real-time and automated testing across over 3000 configurations, including browsers and real mobile devices.
The platform supports automated testing, allowing users to script and execute test scenarios. This is instrumental in achieving faster and more reliable test execution, especially for repetitive and regression testing tasks.
It supports cross-browser testing across many browsers, ensuring that web applications are compatible and function seamlessly on different browser versions. This is critical for delivering a consistent user experience to a diverse user base.
LambdaTest extends its testing capabilities to real mobile devices, providing a realistic environment for testing mobile applications. This includes testing on various devices, operating systems, and screen sizes, addressing the complexities associated with mobile app development.
In summary, LambdaTest stands out as a powerful and versatile testing platform that combines AI-driven orchestration, manual and automated testing support, and a vast array of testing environments. This makes it well-suited for teams and organizations looking to enhance their testing processes and ensure the robustness and reliability of their applications across diverse scenarios.
Conclusion
Cross-browser testing is the testing process for software applications that ensures that your website will be compatible with various types of web browsers. There are two types of cross-browser compatibility: forward cross-browser compatibility and backward cross-browser compatibility. You need to install the latest Java version, environment variables, and other configurations to perform cross-browser compatibility with Selenium and JavaScript.
