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

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

#21

Post by patrakov »

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #17
jfk13 wrote: post #13

> Do we really need to test our code on 50ish Chrome versions, 25is Firefox versions and so on. Probably not, unless you're a really big outfit with a vast user base. But you should test on at least a recent Chrome version and a recent Firefox version, and probably Safari. And unless your product is irrelevant to mobile users, on both iOS (Safari) and Android (Chrome, Firefox), with both phone and tablet form factors…

Painful as it is to admit, even Firefox is not worth testing. In our B2B site, more people are using IE11 than FF. https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share at ~3% of overall share / 7% desktop-only share it's hard to justify putting extra effort.

Maybe they are not using Firefox, because your site is broken in it, and they have no other way to tell you this?

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

#23

Post by chunk_waffle »

yeputons wrote: post #14

I have no idea about how relevant it is, but every few months I see a website which seem to be tested in Chrome only, because it blatantly don't load in Firefox or Safari. Like, at all, blank page. Or have some buttons like "Purchase" not working.

My retirement account and healthcare provider both have this problem. In one case I had to manually delete a disabled attribute on a button to get signed in because something broke halfway through a multi-step workflow.

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

#24

Post by n8cpdx »

Please test with Safari on desktop at least. I routinely find things that are just completely broken. And not small names, big names like Hulu, Clover, green chef, and others have just completely broken on Safari. Integration with Google’s captcha seems to be a common failure point.

Also please consider writing your apps in a way such that they don’t completely shit the bed if your 600th ad tracker script fails to load. I hate having to disable pihole so that Google can track me while I pay my utility bill.

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

#25

Post by Raed667 »

n8cpdx wrote: post #24

Please test with Safari on desktop at least. I routinely find things that are just completely broken. And not small names, big names like Hulu, Clover, green chef, and others have just completely broken on Safari. Integration with Google’s captcha seems to be a common failure point. Also please consider writing your apps in a way such that they don’t completely shit the bed if your 600th ad tracker script fails to lo…

Safari is a pain with bugs, unimplemented standards and just overall unpleasantness.

I can't see why anyone would still use it today when FireFox for Mac has become so good.

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

#26

Post by drummer »

n8cpdx wrote: post #24

Please test with Safari on desktop at least. I routinely find things that are just completely broken. And not small names, big names like Hulu, Clover, green chef, and others have just completely broken on Safari. Integration with Google’s captcha seems to be a common failure point. Also please consider writing your apps in a way such that they don’t completely shit the bed if your 600th ad tracker script fails to lo…

No post body was provided.

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

#27

Post by jfk13 »

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #17
jfk13 wrote: post #13

> Do we really need to test our code on 50ish Chrome versions, 25is Firefox versions and so on. Probably not, unless you're a really big outfit with a vast user base. But you should test on at least a recent Chrome version and a recent Firefox version, and probably Safari. And unless your product is irrelevant to mobile users, on both iOS (Safari) and Android (Chrome, Firefox), with both phone and tablet form factors…

Painful as it is to admit, even Firefox is not worth testing. In our B2B site, more people are using IE11 than FF. https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share at ~3% of overall share / 7% desktop-only share it's hard to justify putting extra effort.

It's not just about the number of your users who are directly using Firefox; it's also about ensuring your code isn't inadvertently depending on non-standard Chrome quirks, and promoting standards compliance, portability, robustness, and such-like goodness on the web.

(Test IE11 as well, by all means, if it's relevant to your users; but it's much less relevant to the future of the web.)

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

#29

Post by croisillon »

golemiprague wrote: post #20

I have noticed that there are still vast differences in the printing functionality, both in terms of how things render and performance. So if you need to do any kind of printing in the app and you know your clients will use an array of different browsers it is worth checking it. Even within the same browser things tend to go back and forth when it comes to printing, Chrome for example tends to break things in one ver…

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

#30

Post by blowski »

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #17
jfk13 wrote: post #13

> Do we really need to test our code on 50ish Chrome versions, 25is Firefox versions and so on. Probably not, unless you're a really big outfit with a vast user base. But you should test on at least a recent Chrome version and a recent Firefox version, and probably Safari. And unless your product is irrelevant to mobile users, on both iOS (Safari) and Android (Chrome, Firefox), with both phone and tablet form factors…

Painful as it is to admit, even Firefox is not worth testing. In our B2B site, more people are using IE11 than FF. https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share at ~3% of overall share / 7% desktop-only share it's hard to justify putting extra effort.

I can imagine how IE11 gets a higher proportion in traffic in B2B. In B2C, particularly amongst some niches, I'd guess Firefox is still proportionally popular. For example, I'd love to see browser stats for HN.

(Disclosure: I am still very much a Firefox user, so this might be projection.)

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