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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?

#41

Post by codetrotter »

Raed667 wrote: post #25
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.

Safari is probably better optimised for power consumption on macOS than Firefox is. Meaning you’ll probably get more hours of use with Safari on macOS than with Firefox on macOS, when you are running on battery.

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

#42

Post by sosodev »

Vinnl wrote: post #32
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…

We sometimes hit a bug in Safari which doesn't appear in GNOME Web, which is annoying, because that's really the only WebKit-based browser that runs on my machine. I'd be happy to better support Safari if I wouldn't have to buy new hardware for it :/

It is absurd that Apple doesn't distribute Safari to other desktop platforms or at least make it source available so the community could compile it and fix bugs for themselves.

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

#43

Post by lelandfe »

Raed667 wrote: post #25
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.

The simple answer is that Safari ships with the platform and few people choose browsers based on standards adherence.

For daily use, it’s a pretty normal experience.

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

#44

Post by lotsofpulp »

codetrotter wrote: post #41
Raed667 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Safari is probably better optimised for power consumption on macOS than Firefox is. Meaning you’ll probably get more hours of use with Safari on macOS than with Firefox on macOS, when you are running on battery.

Battery life, speed, and integration with Keychain is why I use Safari.

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

#45

Post by jitl »

sosodev wrote: post #42
Vinnl wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We sometimes hit a bug in Safari which doesn't appear in GNOME Web, which is annoying, because that's really the only WebKit-based browser that runs on my machine. I'd be happy to better support Safari if I wouldn't have to buy new hardware for it :/

It is absurd that Apple doesn't distribute Safari to other desktop platforms or at least make it source available so the community could compile it and fix bugs for themselves.

There was Safari for Windows back in the iTuned era.

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

#46

Post by hebrox »

We're using Playwright [0] to do e2e testing. Locally I just run Chrome, but on CI FF and Safari are used as well. Using the official Docker image, this was really easy to setup. Because all browsers are automatically updated nowadays, we only test the most recent versions.

A recent issue we found, was that Safari was responding different to some HTTP headers.

[0]: https://playwright.dev/

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

#47

Post by bryanrasmussen »

> Do we really need to test our code on 50ish Chrome versions, 25is Firefox versions and so on.

The only time I've ever seen this intense level of testing was on a government project that was producing someone that everyone in the country would be required to use. So if that is what your situation is yes, you need to do that much testing because if it is mandated by law that citizens use it, it better be able to handle whatever combination of citizen and tech it encounters.

Otherwise I think you are probably being somewhat hyperbolic here.

Aside from that where accessibility is concerned there can be significant differences between various combinations of browsers and screen readers.

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

#48

Post by l0b0 »

patrakov wrote: post #21
TAForObvReasons wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yep, it's the classic self-fulfilling prophecy. Even a lot of non-techies are aware that there are multiple browsers, and will just switch to whichever gets the job done. So if you're seeing less % of any specific browser than the overall web your site is probably broken on that browser. If it's not obvious by now, that means you need to do more testing in that browser, not less.

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

#49

Post by falcolas »

patrakov wrote: post #21
TAForObvReasons wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Exactly this happened at the company I work for, and their move to only support Chrome was hailed as a revolutionary time-and-effort saving affair.

grrr

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

#50

Post by thepra »

Arubis wrote: post #15

I consult, frequently jumping between web application codebases. Very often, I bring cross-browser testing with me by sheer nature of using Firefox when _everyone_ has been using Chrome exclusively for years. I end up finding issues; about half the time, clients don't care, because all their customers use Chrome. This direction worries me (we did this with MSIE and it took a decade+ to heal those wounds).

Just tell them Chrome is going to become the next IE if everything only works on Chrome
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