Top Manual Testing Tools

What is Manual Testing?

As the name implies, this one is a type of software testing where test cases are being executed manually by an expert. Yes, here there is no scope for automation tools to be used. The main objective behind conducting manual testing is that several bugs, issues and errors can be identified. It may quite interest you to know that manual testing is considered as one of the most primitive techniques that assist professionals in identifying critical bugs in the developed app.

In fact, most veteran software testers always emphasize the fact that testing an application manually is extremely important than testing it via automation tools. Yes, even though automation tools save ample time and energy, the significance of manual testing shouldn’t be ignored at any rate. After all, there is no concept such as 100% automation. Further below I would like to mention some of the manual testing types which can also be used as an automation tool.

• Black Box Testing
• White Box Testing
• Unit Testing
• System Testing
• Integration Testing
• Acceptance Testing

Like it or not, manual testing is a very important part of the entire software testing process and it somehow has to be performed prior to its release. Being a human, these professionals exactly know how the end-user will see the software and they do the same. So yes, manual testing is done to review the developed app or website from the end-users point of view. Certain aspects such as a smooth checkout process, fast-loading hi-res images, links to social media channels, and quick optimization are well taken care of here.

So how different is manual testing from automation testing? Well, both concepts are extremely different. You see manual testing requires an expert to intervene whereas automation testing doesn’t. All types of apps and websites can be tested manually to assess User Interface, User Experience, ad-hoc or exploratory testing and whatnot! Automation testing is highly recommended for stable systems which are likely to have fewer bugs and is highly considered while conducting regression testing and performance testing.

Further below I would like to mention certain benefits of conducting manual testing.

Benefits of Manual Testing

#1 It’s Okay if Your Programming Knowledge is Not Legit

One of the obvious benefits of manual testing is that one is not required to have a solid knowledge of programming. In fact, what needs to be done here is first of all the requirements are being understood and then document test cases are being made and executed simultaneously. Though test cases are being conducted here, programming is not used. On the contrary, while you are conducting automation testing what happens is test cases can only be enhanced when testers are able to use anyone programming language. So here having significant programming knowledge is necessary. 

#2 Enables Testers to focus more on complex features

Another significant benefit of the manual testing tool over automation is that here testers can focus more on complex features. Also, in automation tools, this turns out to be pretty time-consuming. Whereas with manual testing, testers tend to spend less time focusing on emulating each unique user path possible. Yes, in other words, they can seamlessly concentrate on complex features and functions.

#3 Errors can be detected externally

Another advantage of manual testing is that even while doing so the code is not affected at all. For example, the server response time doesn’t change even when the software testing is taking place. Manual testing is all about testing various capabilities of the application. And you know what’s more intimidating here, you don’t have to use pre-built test cases but think of on-the-fly scenarios.

Now what happens is the real version from the point of view of end-users is extremely different from the point of view of an automation machine. All you have to do is try to execute on multiple browsers, devices, and operating systems.

To perform successful manual testing what needs to be done?

• First and foremost, go through the software project documentation very carefully
• Draft test cases
• Review them keeping clients in mind
• Execute them
• Report for issues and bugs, if any!
• Again the bugs are fixed, execute them once more to see whether they pass or not.

Top Manual Testing Tools

1.   Selenium

One of the leading testing tool names to take into account is selenium. This one in particular is mainly used to test web applications.

A web application is not created overnight. It takes lots and lots of effort to do so! And what if the end result doesn’t come as expected? Simple, you are bound to face losses.

How is Selenium helpful here? Well, it is an open-source tool that automates web browsers to a great extent. Selenium turns out to be the best manual testing tool till date.

This one offers a single interface where it is possible to write test scripts such as Ruby, Java, Node, PHP and Python! In addition, the open-source tool has a proven track record for supporting different operating systems such as Windows, Linux, and macOS.

Some of the most interesting components of Selenium include – Selenium IDE, Selenium Client API, Selenium Remote Control, Selenium Web Driver, Selenium Grid and so forth.

It may quite interest you to know that Selenium is one such tool that doesn’t require high-level knowledge of scripting.

So whether you are a mid-level experienced professional or just a beginner, getting started with Selenium should be no big deal for you! Some of the core benefits of using Selenium include:

• Easy to use
• Available for Free
• No scripting knowledge required

2.   Jmeter – Change this para tomm

The next contender in line is Apache JMeter. Again this one is an open-source tool that is highly recommended for testing the performance of dynamic web applications.

Jmeter is highly based on the java application and is used to load functional test behaviour and assess application performance. Overall, creating applications using jMeter is a child’s play.  Some of the most astounding features of Jmeter include:

• It is platform-agnostic, Supports Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and other platforms.
• Clear user interface
• Easy to use
• Versatile

3.   BugZilla

Today, one of the leading manual testing tools that feature maximum functionalities is Bugzilla. So featuring maximum functionalities and versatility is one of the core reasons for choosing Bugzilla as your manual testing tool.

Though this one is not new it has been here for years and maybe that’s the reason why it’s quite in vogue.

Not to mention over the years, it has succeeded in proving its worth again and again. On and all, much like others Bugzilla is pretty easy to use and comprises of simple concepts.

Now can you name me one of the most crucial elements that a software tester must keep in mind? It’s Quality assurance.

And Bugzilla being a leading manual testing tool has a noble reputation for delivering the best possible outcomes by eliminating bugs without much hassle. Also, not to mention that Bugzilla is an open-source tool. 

4.   Mantis

Another reputable name to think of when it comes to the best manual testing tool is Mantis. Again this is no different when it comes to tracking bugs or defects.

Now, what makes Mantis a cut above other manual testing tools is that this one has the potential to customize testing as per users’ needs and requirements.

Not to mention that this manual testing tool in particular is extremely compatible with other platforms such as Windows, iOS, Android, iPhone and more.

Moreover, software testers can add custom functionality to track relevant bugs and issues which might harm the application sooner or later.

Also, with its accurate email notification functionality, one can send emails regarding ongoing updates, comments, and resolutions, especially to those who are well-connected in the project, for example, project managers, stakeholders, etc. 

5.   TestLink

Unlike others this one is pretty much kind of an ambidextrous tool, you must be wondering why? Well, testLink is one such tool that supports both manual testing as well as automated testing.

Also, Testlink is free, and open-source which means you can save a lot of money by using the tool in particular. Some of the crucial benefits of TestLink include-

• A wide range of assistance options
• User-friendly programs
• Comprises of tons of web-based capabilities

6.   QTP

Have you heard of HP? Yes, I am talking about one of the reputable firms offering a wide range of quality tools. QTP is one of its products.

Mostly recommended for UFT testing, regression testing and functional testing. There is no denying the fact that software testing requires a high-end manual testing process and QTP works wonders in such a scenario.

Easy to use, pretty versatile, supports keyboard and scripting interface, and effective graphical interface are some of the core aspects derived from QTP. 

7.   ALM

ALM or Quality centre is a manual test management tool that assists well in taking care of application lifecycle management.

Right from crucial resources, project milestones, and deliverables, everything is well-taken care of here. Also, as a project owner, there will be no difficulty in tracking the health of the project or its current status.

The enterprise-wide application is based on Java 2 enterprise edition tech. For backend purposes, ALM uses Oracle and MS SQL.

Conclusion

Manual Testing has to be taken into account no matter what the situation is! You see since this one is available with a different set of parameters, this one is pretty different from all the other forms of testing. I am sure you enjoyed reading the post.

And I assure you that all the aforementioned tools are some of the best tools to take into consideration while conducting manual testing.

However, before you pick one do spare some time and consult with your software development company and try picking the right choice that is cost-effective and leads to less-time consumption.

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Top 10 Automation Testing Tools: 2020 Edition

The demand for delivering quality software faster — or “Quality at Speed” — requires organizations to search for solutions in Agile, continuous integration (CI), and DevOps methodologies. Test automation is an essential part of these aspects. The latest World Quality Report 2018–2019 suggests that test automation is the biggest bottleneck to deliver “Quality at Speed,” as it is an enabler of successful Agile and DevOps adoption.

Test automation cannot be realized without good tools; as they determine how automation is performed and whether the benefits of automation can be delivered. Test automation tools is a crucial component in the DevOps toolchain. The current test automation trends have increased in applying artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) to offer advanced capabilities for test optimization, intelligent test generation, execution, and reporting. It will be worthwhile to understand which tools are best poised to take advantage of these trends.****

#automation-testing #automation-testing-tools #testing #testing-tools #selenium #open-source #test-automation #automated-testing

Top 10 Mobile Performance Testing Tools

Challenge for brands: how to offer a seamless, fast, and user-friendly mobile experience?

App users have a low tolerance for slowness, with a reported 43% of users unhappy if they have to wait longer than three seconds for an app to load. ([App Samurai])

It’s not enough to ensure that your mobile app functions properly, but also to test how it behaves on different devices, under heavy user load, different network connections, etcetera. It’s equally important to test different metrics on both the client-side as well as the server-side. This is where finding the right tool or set of tools for mobile performance testing is essential.

After extensively researching, I’ve put together a list of top-rated mobile performance testing tools and provided an overview of each below.

#testing #load testing tool #testing tools #performance #mobile testing tools

Top Security Penetration Testing Companies

Cybercrime is one of the world’s fastest-growing threats, with malicious actors constantly elaborating their methods of undetectable intrusion. According to Verizon’s Business 2020 Data Breach Investigations report, there has been a 100% increase in web app breaches, and stolen credentials were used in more than 80% of these cases. These statistics are worrying for many businesses that actively move their processes to the cloud and deal heavily with customers’ personal data.

Under these circumstances, companies need to run regular automated and manual tests to determine weak spots in their infrastructure, software, network and physical perimeter security. One of the most efficient testing methods is security penetration testing, or pentesting.

Pentesting is a benign hacking attempt, manual or automated, to break into the system and uncover its vulnerabilities before actual cyber criminals do it. This method is directed at testing the system security controls for their real-world effectiveness. It involves such stages as data collection, threat modeling, vulnerability scans, penetration tests, and so on.

To get proactive with their cyber security protection, many businesses cooperate with professional security testing companies that are able to comprehensively check the system, identify risks, fix vulnerabilities, and stay one step ahead of potential hackers.

The ranking criteria for security testing companies

When asking a professional software testing company to check your system’s security, in most cases you need to grant them access to sensitive information. For this reason, it’s important to choose a reliable company with an exceptional reputation, which will become your trusted partner.

Unsurprisingly, the market of security penetration testing companies is overwhelmingly crowded. To narrow down your search, we have analyzed hundreds of testing companies and compiled the list of top testing professionals. We have applied the following criteria:

• Pentesting expertise
• Portfolio
• Software QA experience
• Market penetration
• Online reviews

As a result, we’ve picked 30 skilled security testing companies and rated them accordingly.

1. a1qa

a1qa is a software testing company from Lakewood, CO, that has delivered over 1,500 successful projects and established 10 Centers of Excellence during their 17 years of operation. It has partnered with more than 500 companies, from smaller businesses to Fortune 500 giants. The company’s prominent customers include adidas, Kaspersky Lab, SAP, Yandex, Forex Club, and more.

a1qa specializes in delivering full-cycle QA and testing services, including comprehensive security penetration testing. Its expertise covers testing of web apps such as portals, ecommerce, media and e-learning platforms, games and online casinos, and line-of-business testing, such as CRM, collaboration, document management, and financial systems. The company also runs a specialized security testing lab.

2. QA Mentor

Founded in New York in 2010, QA Mentor has managed to establish a strong global presence with 12 testing centers around the world. Its team consists of 300 certified QA professionals that have successfully completed over 870 projects, including the ones for Amazon, eBay, Bosch, HTC, and more. The company offers more than 30 testing services, with cyber security penetration testing among them.

QA Mentor is recognized as a top software testing company by Clutch, GoodFirms, and Gartner.

3. UnderDefense

UnderDefense is a certified computer and network security company that was established in New York in 2016. It provides a wide range of testing services, with a special focus on security penetration testing. The company’s certified security testing team has performed hundreds of penetration tests, including compliance-specific tests, app and wireless network penetration testing, and social engineering security testing. UnderDefense has been repeatedly awarded by Clutch.

#testing #software-testing #security-testing #penetration-testing #top-software-testing-companies #software-testing-companies #good-company #code-quality

In-house Tool for Performance Testing

In the software development cycle, testing is one of the important criteria. There are many tools available in this space for testing such as Junit, Jmeter, manual, automation, and many performance testing tools. Some of these tools are third-party tools and have a cost-heavy license for the company to manage. For small start-up companies, these license costs can be unbearable. We analyze a tool to make the process easier and more cost effective.

About the Tool

The tool can have two parts. One part can be making a main interface web page where developers/testers can fill in the details and start testing. The other part can be the onboarding template page, where the team can onboard new applications, templates, and stacks so that it appears on the main interface page.

#performance testing #testing tool #performance test tools #testing

Testing Microservices Applications

The shift towards microservices and modular applications makes testing more important and more challenging at the same time. You have to make sure that the microservices running in containers perform well and as intended, but you can no longer rely on conventional testing strategies to get the job done.

This is where new testing approaches are needed. Testing your microservices applications require the right approach, a suitable set of tools, and immense attention to details. This article will guide you through the process of testing your microservices and talk about the challenges you will have to overcome along the way. Let’s get started, shall we?

A Brave New World

Traditionally, testing a monolith application meant configuring a test environment and setting up all of the application components in a way that matched the production environment. It took time to set up the testing environment, and there were a lot of complexities around the process.

Testing also requires the application to run in full. It is not possible to test monolith apps on a per-component basis, mainly because there is usually a base code that ties everything together, and the app is designed to run as a complete app to work properly.

Microservices running in containers offer one particular advantage: universal compatibility. You don’t have to match the testing environment with the deployment architecture exactly, and you can get away with testing individual components rather than the full app in some situations.

Of course, you will have to embrace the new cloud-native approach across the pipeline. Rather than creating critical dependencies between microservices, you need to treat each one as a semi-independent module.

The only monolith or centralized portion of the application is the database, but this too is an easy challenge to overcome. As long as you have a persistent database running on your test environment, you can perform tests at any time.

Keep in mind that there are additional things to focus on when testing microservices.

• Microservices rely on network communications to talk to each other, so network reliability and requirements must be part of the testing.
• Automation and infrastructure elements are now added as codes, and you have to make sure that they also run properly when microservices are pushed through the pipeline
• While containerization is universal, you still have to pay attention to specific dependencies and create a testing strategy that allows for those dependencies to be included

Test containers are the method of choice for many developers. Unlike monolith apps, which lets you use stubs and mocks for testing, microservices need to be tested in test containers. Many CI/CD pipelines actually integrate production microservices as part of the testing process.

Contract Testing as an Approach

As mentioned before, there are many ways to test microservices effectively, but the one approach that developers now use reliably is contract testing. Loosely coupled microservices can be tested in an effective and efficient way using contract testing, mainly because this testing approach focuses on contracts; in other words, it focuses on how components or microservices communicate with each other.

Syntax and semantics construct how components communicate with each other. By defining syntax and semantics in a standardized way and testing microservices based on their ability to generate the right message formats and meet behavioral expectations, you can rest assured knowing that the microservices will behave as intended when deployed.

Ways to Test Microservices

It is easy to fall into the trap of making testing microservices complicated, but there are ways to avoid this problem. Testing microservices doesn’t have to be complicated at all when you have the right strategy in place.

There are several ways to test microservices too, including:

• Unit testing: Which allows developers to test microservices in a granular way. It doesn’t limit testing to individual microservices, but rather allows developers to take a more granular approach such as testing individual features or runtimes.
• Integration testing: Which handles the testing of microservices in an interactive way. Microservices still need to work with each other when they are deployed, and integration testing is a key process in making sure that they do.
• End-to-end testing: Which⁠—as the name suggests⁠—tests microservices as a complete app. This type of testing enables the testing of features, UI, communications, and other components that construct the app.

What’s important to note is the fact that these testing approaches allow for asynchronous testing. After all, asynchronous development is what makes developing microservices very appealing in the first place. By allowing for asynchronous testing, you can also make sure that components or microservices can be updated independently to one another.

#blog #microservices #testing #caylent #contract testing #end-to-end testing #hoverfly #integration testing #microservices #microservices architecture #pact #testing #unit testing #vagrant #vcr