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Cross Browser Testing - what to believe?

  • Hey folks,
    I'm looking for a little direction in cross browser testing. I currently use the adobe browser lab, and if I compare my site render from that to IE 9 beta developer tools, and they both render it differently.

    What does everyone else do, to get a realistic view of a browser you can't check directly?

    Thanks
  • If you're serious about testing, then you can't beat a dedicated test machine. I work on a mac, so have 2 cheap pc's: one running xp and one Win7 to test IE6/7/8 (arguably there's little need to test IE6, but old habits die hard). I also use parallels running XP and Win7, but always do a final test on a dedicated PC running windows natively.
    During a development, if I can't be bothered booting up the PCs, I do use browserLabs as a guide. BrowserLabs is pretty good really.
  • Unfortunately, @box is correct. No amount of applications can substitute testing in the real operating system.

    Like box, I also run on a Mac but have a harddrive with a couple of Windows installations on it to check every once and a while for testing purposes.
  • Hmmm, don't you just love cross browser testing? Lol.

    If your in a windows environment get IE tester, lets you see from IE6-9.
    Something to consider, if your client is ill-educated get them on at least IE8 and higher. Saves you time and saves them money( for me at least). Be strict out there!

    So I just got a macbook pro put Windows 7 on it, thoroughly pleased, ready to cross-platform build now!