A better way to test your pages on different Browsers

I have had the opportunity to test several websites on multiple browsers over the years. My biggest problem was testing all my pages on the different browsers without having to download and install the different browsers onto my machine. Most clients will request for their web pages be tested on at least 3 of the following browsers:

1.       Internet Explorer (IE)

2.       Firefox (FF)

3.       Safari

4.       Opera

5.       Chrome

Although some browsers like FF tend to be consistent even when there is an upgrade to the latest version, others like IE have proven to be a real pain when upgraded to the next version. For a long time IE6 dominated the browser market, but recently, FF have overtaken IE6, IE7, and IE8 combined together. Never the less a lot of clients still want their pages tested properly on IE6 since it is still being used by approximately 17% of customers. Even testing IE6 pages when you have upgraded to IE7 is not very easy because the portable or stand-alone IE6 plug-ins are not very good and often crash your computer. I have used two of the more popular IE6 testing tools and they are: multiple IEs and IE tester. But they have fallen short of expectations and have proven unreliable especially IE tester.

For a while now, I have being looking for a tool that I can use to test my pages error free and came across a new browser testing Webapp know as Xenocode. Xenocode browser sandbox can run any browser from the web and it is especially easy to run and install. It does a really good job of displaying your web pages as if you were running the real version on your machine.  The browsers supported are IE8, IE7, IE6, FF3, FF2, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Opera. This webapp makes it so easy to test your pages against the browsers mentioned above quickly and efficiently. I have also provided a link to the website where you can download the apps. Try it on your project and comment on your experience.

http://www.xenocode.com/browsers/