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Ask HN: How relevant is cross-browser testing anymore?

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Ask HN: How relevant is cross-browser testing anymore?

#1
Given that most of the new companies adopt modern frameworks like React, Angular, Vue which are quite stable across browsers unlike jQuery, Backbone days when the same code worked in Chrome but not Firefox for various reasons.

Just wanted to pick your brains on what do you think how relevant is cross-browser testing. Do we really need to test our code on 50ish Chrome versions, 25is Firefox versions and so on.

Re: Ask HN: How relevant is cross-browser testing anymore?

#3
post #2

True

We might be wrong here and missing some valid point. I see companies doing automation testing beyond a point but do they really test beyond 2 browsers?

One line of thought could be if we have already invested in automation testing then why not run in 80 browsers too when we can. Its just additional hardware cost or cost of platforms like BrowserStack/Lambdatest.

Re: Ask HN: How relevant is cross-browser testing anymore?

#4
Not a web developer, but I usually just test with the latest or almost latest version of FF and perhaps Chrome.

I personally don't like or use any of the frameworks you presented. If I had to pick one I would choose Vue.

jQuery did a lot for inter-browser compatibility, so I don't understand the argument. On the contrary, it was much more difficult to manage diverging code without it.

99% of my web programming is displaying some data, a website to interface XY. I don't like modern websites at all. Probably more a design descision than a framework issue, but I try to minimize any browser scripts in the first place and just haven't felt the need for somthing like React or Angular.

Re: Ask HN: How relevant is cross-browser testing anymore?

#5

Not a web developer, but I usually just test with the latest or almost latest version of FF and perhaps Chrome. I personally don't like or use any of the frameworks you presented. If I had to pick one I would choose Vue. jQuery did a lot for inter-browser compatibility, so I don't understand the argument. On the contrary, it was much more difficult to manage diverging code without it. 99% of my web programming is dis…

Hey @raxxorraxor, I am not against using jQuery. What I meant was initially back in 2012-2013 days when jQuery used to be a default DOM query/manipulation library people used, the same code used to break across browsers and we had to use some polyfills.

Like you said you usually test with the latest version of Chrome/Firefox you are partly agreeing to the statement I made.

I am trying to find someone who's strongly in favour of testing their apps across browsers and multiple versions.

Re: Ask HN: How relevant is cross-browser testing anymore?

#6
Most of the cross browser issues arise either from CSS or JS, and both of these occur because of older browsers. Since we don’t have control over people as to which browser they use, devs generally tackle this issue by using different stylesheets for different browsers conditionally. Modern tools like lambdatest, browserstack generate multiple previews easily.

Re: Ask HN: How relevant is cross-browser testing anymore?

#7
I develop w/ Firefox and our tester tests with Chrome. I use our product quite a bit with an iPad. If problems are reported with Safari we fix them.

I've also worked at places where our product was specified to work with Chrome, I would try to run it with Firefox and no dice and they would not accept any ticket to fix bugs in Firefox.

There's an assumption today that browsers get updated frequently. My work computer is a managed Windows machine that I had administrator access to, the one complaint I have is that the Firefox is a long-term support version which is often long as in "in the tooth". Bloomberg would complain about it incessantly until I got the new LTS version. Other than that I think browsers are usually up to date.

Re: Ask HN: How relevant is cross-browser testing anymore?

#8

I develop w/ Firefox and our tester tests with Chrome. I use our product quite a bit with an iPad. If problems are reported with Safari we fix them. I've also worked at places where our product was specified to work with Chrome, I would try to run it with Firefox and no dice and they would not accept any ticket to fix bugs in Firefox. There's an assumption today that browsers get updated frequently. My work computer…

Fixing any issue specific on Safari is a whole challenge on another level. Hope you had an easy time debugging issues on Safari.

Re: Ask HN: How relevant is cross-browser testing anymore?

#9

I develop w/ Firefox and our tester tests with Chrome. I use our product quite a bit with an iPad. If problems are reported with Safari we fix them. I've also worked at places where our product was specified to work with Chrome, I would try to run it with Firefox and no dice and they would not accept any ticket to fix bugs in Firefox. There's an assumption today that browsers get updated frequently. My work computer…

Fixing any issue specific on Safari is a whole challenge on another level. Hope you had an easy time debugging issues on Safari.

At work we've never had one that was that bad. In one cases it was third-party cookie issues that affected Safari before everyone else.

Personally Safari is the reason why some of my image-based sites still use JPG in parallel with WEBP. I think they fixed it just recently, but if you have an older mac (i do) Apple couldn't be bothered to include a WEBP codec with the OS. Firefox, Chrome and every other browser for mac supports WEBP but not Safari.

I think they resolved this in the last month, but I think for better or first Apple wants to roll out new SIMD instructions in their libraries much faster than Microsoft does. So at some point your CPU is too old. Of course the flip side to that in the Windows World is that people are stuck using a 10 year old instruction set. Intel doesn't seem to get it that by not supporting the latest AVX in their latest chips that people just "don't use AVX". If the latest SIMD instructions were widely supported you'd have a reason to buy a new computer, but when they aren't Intel has lackluster sales and wonders why.

Re: Ask HN: How relevant is cross-browser testing anymore?

#10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fixing any issue specific on Safari is a whole challenge on another level. Hope you had an easy time debugging issues on Safari.

At work we've never had one that was that bad. In one cases it was third-party cookie issues that affected Safari before everyone else. Personally Safari is the reason why some of my image-based sites still use JPG in parallel with WEBP. I think they fixed it just recently, but if you have an older mac (i do) Apple couldn't be bothered to include a WEBP codec with the OS. Firefox, Chrome and every other browser for m…

I have had a very nasty bug that I debugged in Safari. Chrome & Firefox supports redirects to http when the site is on localhost or 127.x.x.x but Safari doesn't and throws a Mixed content warning error.

Another one was similar when redirect chain got broken because of an intermediate redirect (https -> https -> http -> https)

I guess Chrome & Firefox automatically upgrades the protocol now but Safari doesn't and it broke the chain and it was also not showing the broken redirected chain in the Safari developer tool.

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