BrowserCam lets you test your site in many browsers and operating systems

Too many web developers test their website in only one single browser – the one they have in their own computer. This means that they have no idea how their site looks in other browsers or operating systems. They have no chance of correcting any problems with the design unless someone bothers to report any compatibility problems to them.

Professional developers often test their designs with at least the two most current versions of Internet Explorer plus a few other favorite browsers they have easily available. But a developer working with Windows may find it too costly or too cumbersome to test a design on Macintosh, and vice versa. Not to mention testing the site in more than just a few browsers on each platform.

Serious testing of a website in all combinations of browsers and operating systems used to be an overwhelming challenge, and almost impossible for most home-office developers.

BrowserCam helps you detect hidden problems

But with the help of San Francisco start-up BrowserCam, any developer can now view a new web design in more than 50 different combinations of browser and operating system at a very low cost.

BrowserCam makes it easy to study your design under much more difficult circumstances than before:

• Is your design affected by the well-known problems with standards conformance in IE6 and earlier releases – floats, anyone?
• Are your margins and paddings suitable for the way they’re handled by various browsers?
• How does your site look in 800x600 resolution, or on an extra-wide screen?
• What fonts are used to render your site on a Macintosh?
• How good does your color scheme look in various environments?

Testing your site with a minimum of effort

The process of pre-viewing a website in many different environments with BrowserCam is very simple:

1. You sign up for the BrowserCam service. The minimum agreement is for an unlimited amount of screenshots for 24 hours. If you want to test the service before paying for it, look for the 24-hour free trial offer.
2. You specify the URLs you want to test, or have BrowserCam analyze (“spider”) the site’s contents for you.
3. You select the operating systems and browsers you want to test your site with, and the screen sizes you want to use. You can also test both with Flash enabled, and without it.
4. You start the test, and BrowserCam’s computers start loading your web pages into all the requested combinations of operating systems, browsers and screen resolutions. A screenshot is taken of each page and stored in an online image library that you can return to whenever you want – even after the paid testing period has ended.
5. When the tests are complete, you automatically get notified via e-mail.
6. Using BrowserCam’s web application, you browse through the screenshots in the image library and study the result of each test.
7. If you’re not happy with all the tests, you probably modify your design and re-run some of the tests.
8. If you want to run more extensive tests in one particular environment, e.g. to tailor your site in detail to a new Internet Explorer version, you can also sign up for a Remote Control connection, where you control BrowserCam’s dedicated testing environment in real-time remotely from your own computer.

Thanks to BrowserCam you no longer have to maintain additional browsers or even extra computers just to keep your web designs error-free. The cost of the service is negligible compared to the benefits of knowing that your site looks great for all its visitors, regardless of their operating system and browser preferences.

Learn more at www.BrowserCam.com.