A web browser is a special software application used by the World Wide Web users for viewing web pages. Some years ago Internet users were acquainted with a couple of web browsers only. Nowadays the number of such software applications amounts to dozens, especially if you take into account the fact that each of them has several versions with different functionality.
Due to this fact the notion of cross-browser compatibility has emerged. This notion describes the ability of the site to function and be displayed identically in all or almost all browsers (usually the most widespread web browsers are taken into account). By identity we mean the absence of disruptions in the layout and the ability to display the content with the equal level of readability. The notion of cross-browser compatibility is very often confused with pixel-to-pixel correspondence; in fact, these are two completely different notions.
How to ensure cross-browser compatibility of a site?
To make a site look identically in all popular browsers – Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome, Apple Safari – and in different versions of these browsers (from the oldest to the newest ones), a web designer should take care of the cross-browser compatibility of his brainchild from the very beginning of its development.
Where to start? First of all, he should determine the exact set of browsers that should display the site correctly. For this he should study site statistics of websites devoted to similar subject. This statistics allows to see the rating of browsers which are most frequently used by site visitors. Such opportunity is provided by many web analytics services, for example, Google Analytics. Thus having determined the most popular browsers from the point of view of the number of visitors who use these browsers you can get to website development. The matter is that although different browsers observe general rules and standards, it may happen so that their algorithms of interpreting HTML codes and CSS (cascading stylesheets) will differ from one another. Therefore one and the same element may look differently in different browsers.
There are several ways to solve this problem. The most widespread method used by many web developers is writing of the co-called hacks – sets of special selectors or rules that are understood by a particular browser only. In other words, if you need your site to be displayed correctly in, for example, three web browsers you should write a hack for each of these browsers. However, hacks are quire inefficient and sometimes even unfathomable. Besides, if you need to achieve cross-browser compatibility with several dozens of browsers and their versions, it will take you too much time to write all necessary hacks. Therefore there is one more method. It consists in using only those elements of HTML code that are displayed the same way in all required web browsers.
How to test a site for cross-browser compatibility?
The best way to test your site for cross-browser compatibility is to use your local computer. You should install different web browsers and versions of browsers. There should also be an opportunity to change display resolution. You should also keep in mind that a site may look differently in the same browsers, but in different operating systems. Therefore you should create several virtual machines with different operating systems where you will install different browsers (Linux, Windows, MacOS X, and BSD web browsers).
To test a site for cross-browser compatibility you may install a web server (ISS, Apache etc) on your local personal computer and request a page by entering the IP address of the computer (http://127.0.0.1) into the address bar of your browser. This method has its own disadvantages: you will test your site in one operating system and in several browser compatible with this OS, in most cases you won't be able to install older versions of browsers simultaneously with the new ones, you will spend a lot of time to install a web server and browsers/different versions of browsers.
To make testing of your sites for cross-browser compatibility there exist ready-made utility programs and online services. Using such services you will relieve yourself from installing all required web browsers or versions of browsers, virtual machines. All you will have to do is to install a utility program or visit an online cross-browser compatibility testing center. As a result you will be able to get screenshots that will show how your site is displayed in different browsers. Then you can compare and analyze them.
To sum everything up we would like to say that you cannot do without taking into account cross-browser compatibility. Otherwise you will lose a huge number of visitors whose browsers has not been taken into account during website development. The professionals of WebStudio2U always perform cross-browser compatibility testing during website development and creation of web design.
TAGS
cross-browser,
cross-browser compatibility,
cross-browser testing,
cross-browser compatibility testing,
website development,
web design |
web programming 
