Ideas

Browser and Device Testing Made Easy

As the number of devices and browsers your visitors use to access your content it becomes more difficult to quickly test for visual issues in your UI framework. For a long time it was just Windows and Mac and a few browsers. Testing could be accomplished using two computers or an OS emulator. Then along came the age of mobile devices  and responsive design and we found ourselves challenged to keep up.

The forward looking folks at Browserstack must have seen it all coming as they were definitely one of the first companies in the game to present a platform to combine all your testing needs into one convenient environment. I finally tossed my copy of VMWare and switched to Browserstack early on in their development and have enjoyed watching them expand their services over the years. The cost for the service has risen over the years, but they are without a doubt the best option out there.

Here are a few of the bullet points for the low end ($29 per month at the time of this post) subscription.

  • Unlimited Interactive testing
  • 2000+ browsers & real devices
  • Unlimited Screenshots
  • Unlimited Local testing
  • Share issues using JIRA & more

The way it works is so simple and quick that it just takes all of the setup work out of testing and saves you hours of time. Once logged in you just select your OS, browser or device and enter your development or production URL. Their device testing is all done on real devices.

One of the more stellar recent features has been localized testing which allows you to run tests through your local development environment in their browser. The only thing I still find a bit hinky is trying to use the console to troubleshoot css issues on Windows. There is some lag and it can be difficult depending on the browser, but I can’t fault them much for that. All in all they have saved me many MANY hours over the years tuning up UI css/html across the ever growing landscape. Well done Browserstack.

To learn more about their services visit the website – Browserstack

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