Cross Browser Testing. Pick a browser, Pick an OS, Test website

For me, OSX + VMWare is my ideal testing environment. As virtualization comes into play more on desktops, that could marginalize the utility of a browser-based solution for this, although presently I think it's an idea that is definitely useful and price-wise they offer good value.

I haven't used virtualization on Windows or Linux much, how are those at testing other platforms? All the major browsers already run on Windows, but I've been bitten by differences in Firefox between Windows and OSX before (line heights were off), so multi-OS testing is still important.

This is tony from CrossBrowserTesting.com and we really love the feedback!

We really think with ajax this is the only way to do cross browser compatibility. Our site can do screenshots too but you have all the control.

Thanks for checking it out. We will take any feedback good or bad!

Great idea. I've been using browsershots.org, which while cheaper only provides static images of pages. Sandboxing the entire machine is a clear improvement. A logical next step is automated testing to take advantage of these system configurations, something like Selenium.

browsershots.org - kills it I think. I don't know what the cost of operation is, but at most its a machine loaded with the different OS's and the different browsers (using commodity stuff probably under $1k) then the hosting bandwidth etc.. this is something that should be offered free to customers of your bigger service, this isn't a stand-a-lone product. imo

I choosed Vista plain install. All I get is a blank white screen. On top, it displays the % bar and two buttons.

There is definitely a need for this service. Having machines running three OSes, and a plethora of browsers, on your desktop is not yet an option. While it certainly is possible to _have_ a server farm with all these OSes, why not just let someone else maintain that nightmare? Sysadmin hell is what I call that.

The service is slow, but that will change. It "just worked" for me running OS X 10.5 with Firefox 3b5 - I didn't even check if I had Java or which version my Java was, everything went smoothly. There were some artifacts from moving the mouse, but it let me view several of my pages and gave me some good views of how others see my sites.

I think the pricing model is reasonable.

Perhaps what you can do to extend the service is allow users to pay for a set of mouse movements, record them, and run them on every OS/browser/flash combination. Then allow customers to play those files back on their own machines at their leisure, instead of doing it in real time. This would allow a web developer a way to create a 'use case' for their page, and see how it behaved across various platforms. Also, you would not have to supply so much bandwidth, just compress the results and provide them for downloading later.

I'm a little disappointed in Hacker news for the negative comments on Java. While I don't write Java, and lots of my perl colleagues dis Java, I would have thought that this Lisp-centric community would be more tolerant and agnostic when it comes to choice of programming languages. After all, it the innovation of the final result that matters, not the tools used.

I wish you luck Tony with your service, I am sure it will be a success!

I'll give it a try. I currently use browsercam (http://www.browsercam.com) and vnc into different platforms to test sites.

I really like this and I agree, it's one of those forehead slapper idea's, obvious when you see it. Is it just me or is the pricing structure a little aggressive?

Worked for me, and seems like a great service. I will be using this in the future.

I'm working a lot with mobile phones, especially S60 Symbian stuff, so I have found Nokia RDA* very useful. I have wondered why something similar would not be available for website testing. Well, here it is!

*) http://www.forum.nokia.com/main/technical_services/testing/r...

I think this is pretty expensive. Sometimes, you want to check things as you develop, so there might be needs for longer period of testing. You can easly run over 150 minutes a day, or even 500 minutes in two days.

Paying basocally just for an OS instance 50/in two days is a lot of cash.

# Credits Total time Cost Savings

1 5 minutes $1 -

6 30 minutes $5 17%

30 150 minutes $20 33%

100 500 minutes $50 50%

If it's just vnc and the java applet is a vnc client (as it appears), why not let the person choose which vnc client to use? That would allow for greater flexibility and less pain for the guys mantaining the service. The java client could be there only for the people who rather use it that way.

You know what would really make this a killer app?

If I could post a URL I want to test in a form, and be able to select select what browsers I want to test that URL in. And, then, have a script run that would open that URL in each of the web browsers I want to test it in.

That would make a web designer's life much, much easier.

Really nice! I don't understand how anyone thought browser testing could be done with just images before.

Great service. I'll probably use it. The demo is really well done. I'm impressed.

Awesome Stuff.

Extremely simple. Very Useful. Usability rocks.

You guys are going to make tons of cash from this.

It works very well, little slow but is not speed what is intended to be tested. I tested my site with IE 5.0 ... awfull! :) I just missed the Mac OS , as only Windows and Ubuntu are available right now.

Damn, one of those "why didn't I think of that" moments. Congrats guys!

I think you'd add additional value if your configs also supported internet enabled mobile devices like the blackberry and others. Nice concept.

No OSX support?

apologies if this is a stupid question, but is there a way to test a site that is offline using this service?

wow, impressive

Any plans to add OSX as well?

browsershots.org is GPLd and does cross browser testing. Uses Python.