“How do I perform website testing on older browser versions? Is it even necessary?”

Have you ever wondered about these questions? If you did, you’re not the only one. At some point, every web tester or web developer ponders on these. And it is logical to do so. After all, new browser versions are released every month. Which makes it difficult for testers & developers to maintain a record of emerging & deprecated features. Not to forget, the never-ending release requirements are constantly squeezing your bandwidth.

It can be an overwhelming task to ensure a cross-browser compatible website, that works seamlessly even on older browsers. Which is why some of our clients have also enquired if it is important for them to test on older browser versions? If so, which browsers should they consider for cross-browser testing? And I am going to help you get answers to these questions in this article.

Why Is It Important To Test On Older Browser Versions?

The past decade has witnessed an immense rise in internet usage. The internet traffic at a global level continues to rise significantly with each passing day. There was a time when surfing the internet meant double-clicking on the IE icon on your desktops.

But over the years we have been introduced to a wide array of browsers including, but not limited to Google Chrome, Opera, Safari, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge. As per StatCounter, Google Chrome and Safari dominate the browser market with a share of 65% and 17% each from June 2019 — June 2020.

But did you notice something else here?

Internet Explorer & Edge legacy browsers are still having enough browser market share to have themselves listed among the top 10 most used browsers worldwide in the last year. And you might be surprised to realize that Internet Explorer has been deprecated in 2015 and hasn’t received any update since then.

The emergence of modern browsers led IE to its deathbed. A majority of us weren’t bothered by the death of IE because deep down the notorious IE has caused all of us a fair share of troubles. Remember those good old days when IE was used as a default browser? 🙂

However, it is intriguing to notice that the IE community still exists. Even after Chris Jackson, Microsoft Security Chief insisted people to stop using IE.

Well, we have considered an example of the fallen king IE but what about the reigning king Google Chrome?

Earlier, we realized the browser market share. Now, let’s dig deeper and look into the browser version market share.

#manual-testing #browser-testing #browsers #testing