Jun 13

eBoss Cross-Browser Testing / Browser Compatibility

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Cross-browser testing, as it is commonly referred to by web designers, can add both a significant delay to development cycles, and a significant increase in the overall cost of any web project.

As has been well documented, many large websites such as Facebook have ceased supporting older browser versions in 2010 / 2011.

eBoss currently supports :

Internet Explorer 7, 8 & 9.
Firefox 3 & 4.
Google Chrome.
Safari

eBoss does offer browser testing in other browser versions if a Client requires it at our Standard Hourly Rate.

To illustrate why eBoss adhere to this policy, we have included below some sample statistics on the Operating Systems, and Browser Types & Versions that are commonly used.

QUICK SUMMARY

A quick calculation based on the number of Browser Versions, and the number of Operating Systems below, indicates that we would need to test each website on (number of OS’s multiplied by number of Browser versions) several hundred different setups to make absolutely sure that every browser and operating system combination was okay. Obviously this is not a tenable situation, even for companies such as Facebook with extensive resources.

DETAILED STATISTICS

In descending order of popularity, with approximate percentages, these are the stats:

BROWSERS:

Firefox – 48%
Chrome – 30%
Internet Explorer – 13%
Safari – 5%
Opera – 2%
Mozilla – < 1%

BROWSER VERSIONS:

Firefox -

4.0.1
3.6.17
4.0
3.6.3
3.6.8
3.6
3.6.10
3.6.12
3.6.15
3.6.16

Chrome

11.0.696.68
11.0.696.71
11.0.696.65
11.0.696.60
10.0.648.205
10.0.648.204
11.0.696.57
12.0.742.77
12.0.712.0
12.0.742.60

Internet Explorer

8.0
9.0
7.0

Safari

533.21.1
6533.18.5
533.18.5
533.19.4
533.20.27
6531.22.7

Opera

11.10
11.11
10.53
11.01
9.64

Mozilla

1.9.03

OPERATING SYSTEMS:

Windows – 83%
Macintosh – 9%
Linux – 5%
iPhone – 1%

OPERATING SYSTEM VERSIONS:

Windows -

7
XP
Vista
Server 2003

Macintosh

Intel 10.6
Intel 10.5
Intel

Linux – 5%

(not set)

iPhone – 1%

So a back-of-an-envelope calculation would be something like this:

No. of browsers – 35
No. of OS’s – 9

= 315 testing scenarios.
** in the real world, the figure may be lower due to the fact that not every browser will be used on every OS, but this is a rough indication. So there you have it folks, straight from the IT department, we’d rather support the top browsers than go crazy perfecting a system for over 300!

 

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