Automated Browser Testing is a Must For Modern Web Development

Cross-browser testing is not a new term for someone who is into web development. If you are generating a website or a web application, you would want to operate it smoothly on different browsers. It is not as simple as it sounds!

Cross-browser problems have been nightmarish for web developers. These issues have increased in the last decade due to many causes, making life hard for web testers too!

Cross-browser testing is the practice to catch cross-browser issues on your web application before they wreck the user experience for your visitors that may show up utilizing different browsers and operating systems. Doing it manually can be strenuous considering the amount of browser + OS combinations that you require to validate for your web application.

Thanks to open-source frameworks such as Selenium who have made life simpler for the community. Using Selenium, you can implement automated browser testing to fast-track your go-to-market launch.

Evolution Of Modern Web Development

Web development has observed a drastic change since the last decade. From the traditional times where HTML, CSS, and JS, were the sole means to web development. We now have dozens of programming languages, dedicated frameworks, libraries, and more, to ease out the activities of web developers. To know why we require automated browser testing today, we require to first understand the factors responsible for the evolution of modern web development.

Availability of Numerous Browsers

Gone are the days with fewer alternatives to access the internet. The last couple of decades have offered an abundance of browsers in the market. This began to browser wars as the market share got divided among several browsers. With different visitors supporting different browsers, developers and testers can no longer concentrate only on Internet Explorer or any other browser in particular. To protect your brand reputation, it would be best to have your web application available for as many browsers as possible.

To rule browser wars, tech giants such as Microsoft, Google, Apple, and more competed on common ground. Competition being the root cause of innovation has pointed to a major enhancement in modern web development.

Introduction of Smartphone and Mobile Devices

As per Statcounter, The number of users running the internet through mobile is now more than the number of users by the desktop.

Increased internet consumption through mobiles made it necessary for almost every online business to have a responsive mobile website. It also suggested more mobile browsers gathering the landscape of browser wars.

Due to variations in network accessibility and bandwidth between mobile and desktops, developers came up with unique innovations to enhance website loading speed for a better user experience. The communities operating on the elements of web development such as HTML and CSS have also understood the stats and have developed and transformed different functions to enhance the user experience.

The user grows for a better experience today. A web user today requires a better and unique user experience and will favor the website which is providing it.

Security

Cyber attacks are not something that you listen to once in a few years now. As the technologies have improved and the methods have evolved in that direction, they have certainly grown in this direction as well. After all, everything is connected. Cyber-attacks have become popular these days and as the websites are publishing today that take user data such as Google or Facebook, they certainly control the risk of being attacked.

The user requires to be assured that their data is safe. Keeping this in mind and providing secure browsing, developers concentrate more on the security of the website today. Cryptographic methods have been included in the websites and communication has become encrypted. Many programs and compliances are being used to implement a secure browsing experience such as two-factor authentication on a developed website.

Every Browser Is A Different Story

Browsers have been into alterations and improvement stages since they were born and it has been a continuous process. Every browser is distinct in its unique way. After all, a browser is also a product and every organization tries to sell its product by delivering it a little differently. This, although, is a treat for the users who get to encounter unique functionalities and enjoy the browsers, it is not so great for the developer.    

These rendering problems which arise in different browsers as a result of just being differently coded are called browser compatibility issues. In other terms, if your website is looking, acting, or rendering differently on a different browser, you have got some cross-browser compatibility problems.

Here Is Why You Need Automated Browser Testing

Browser compatibility testing indicates testing a website on different browsers to assure that the website is rendered as the developer designed it to be on all the browsers. It is not an easy road due to the huge evolution of modern web development. With so many browsers, web development frameworks, characteristics, and platform-independent access towards the internet have made browser compatibility testing crucial for any successful business operating online.

You would have to test your website across number of browsers + OS combinations. Also, you can’t just randomly begin browser compatibility testing from any random browser + OS. There is no harm in doing manual cross-browser testing; however, automated cross-browser testing can benefit you cruize through your release cycles a lot faster. That said, it isn’t going to be simple as you will require to have the right resources on board.

Automation testers who are experts in test automation frameworks such as Selenium, Appium, and more. Further down the road, you will notice that the ROI on automation testing is a lot more than you thought and there are reasons behind it.

Scalability

Manual cross-browser testing is not almost as scalable as Selenium automation testing. With time, your web application will improve, also you will have newer browser versions that you may have to include in your testing checklist. Now, if your tester’s bandwidth is full then who will be responsible for the newer checklist additions?

You can either select a new resource, or you can opt for automated browser testing. With, automated browser testing you can increase your test suite by adding more browser or OS-based desired abilities in your Selenium automation script.

Parallel Testing

Another lucrative advantage of favoring automated browser testing is the capability to conduct parallel testing with Selenium Grid or any other test automation framework. You can’t manually conduct testing on two or more several browser + OS combinations, simultaneously.

Queuing

Can you do browser compatibility testing round the clock, manually? It won’t be a nice idea until you have chosen automated browser testing. With Selenium automation testing, you can queue your test cases and have them work back to back round the clock.

Regression Testing Made Easy

Living in an agile-dominated world, we understand the pace at which release cycles are completed. CI/CD pipelines triggering code into the production environment on a monthly, weekly, and even daily basis make it very difficult for the testers to do regression testing for the web application.

Not to forget, the code modifications deployed as a hotfix for outages would also require a thorough round of regression testing to avoid the following outage. Automated browser testing can help you do regression testing with ease. All you have to do is run the Selenium automation scripts after a CI CD pipeline is deployed.

Time-Saving

Automated browser testing is a time-saving process. You can get relieved of repetitive test scripts and put your testers to detect more critical bugs. You can queue your test cases and work round the clock. The best part, you can implement automated browser testing in parallel for different browser + OS configurations.

Conclusion

Web development is growing every day and with it grows the browser’s rendering capabilities. The browser wars are taking a new turn now! After seeing the dominance of Google Chrome, many major browser vendors such as Microsoft are preparing to bring a new browser-based on Chromium. Nevertheless, the requirement for browser compatibility testing is now more than ever! However, performing so manual can be an exhausting activity.

Need some guidance in automated browser testing? Choose to team up with a QA services provider like TestUnity. Our team of testing experts specializes in QA and have years of experience implementing tests with different testing software. Partner with our QA engineers who can help your team in adopting the best suitable testing practices. Get in touch with a TestUnity expert today.

TestUnity

Testunity is a SaaS-based technology platform driven by a vast community of testers & QAs spread around the world, powered by technology & testing experts to create the dedicated testing hub. Which is capable of providing almost all kind of testing services for almost all the platforms exists in software word.