Browsers and versions to test site?

[glaze]

Currently I test in the following browsers:

PC: NS4.7 (though I'm starting to skip this), Firefox, IE 6
Mac: IE 5, Safari

Is this a good cross section? If not, which browsers should I add?

Thanks!

[henry0]

Mozillla?
also in Netscape be aware that from NN4.7 to the most recent NN a few variation exists
and it goes from accepting this
droping that and back back and forth
so if you really want a good cross section...
well there is not such a thing; I will use the full palette
However if you validate OK you should be ok in most case

good luck
regards

henry

[isitreal]

Opera 7, and if you're not testing in IE 5x windows, you are going to run into potentially serious display issues that cannot be guessed at merely because your pages validate and are standards compliant, but will affect up to 30-50% of your users. IE 5x windows has nothing to do with IE 5x mac, totally different browser, similar in name only, just like Opera 6 windows and mac had almost nothing to do with each other.

When I do a new website I open it and see if it doesn't crash netscape 4x, but the main thing you need to check on netscape 4 is that your dom javascript, if you use it, is correctly escaped so it doesn't pop up an endless series of javascript errors.

[jetboy_70]

Personally:

IE 5.01 SP2 on Win98SE

IE 6 (quirks and strict); Netscape 6.01 & 7.02; Opera 5.0, 6.0 & 7.54; Firefox 0.9 on WinXP

IE 5.0 & 5.2; Safari 1.0 (or OmniWeb 5) & 1.2; Netscape 7; Mozilla 1.7; Opera 6 on MacOS

Konqueror 3; Netscape 7; Mozilla 1.7 on Linux

Plus visual checks in IE 4 and Netscape 4.8

Admittedly a long and over-cautious list. You could ditch the old versions of Opera and anything by Netscape. You could also lose IE 4 and possibly even IE 5.0 and still be relatively safe.

[encyclo]

The basic list for any site should include:

Windows

• IE 5.01
  
• IE 5.5
  
• IE 6.0
  

Mac

• IE 5.2
  
• Safari (latest)
  

Linux

• Konqueror (latest)
  

Platform-neutral

• Mozilla 1.4 (aka Netscape 7.1)
  
• Mozilla 1.7 or Firefox (latest)
  
• Opera 7.54 (or latest version)
  
• Lynx (a text-mode browser - gives a good impression of what a search-engine bot "sees")
  

Extras (only if specifically required - otherwise check the site is readable but don't worry about the layout)

• Netscape 4.79 or 4.8
  
• IE4 (Windows)
  
• IE4 (Mac)
  

NOT required

• Netscape 6.x or Mozilla prior to 1.4
  
• Netscape 4.7 or lower
  
• IE prior to 4
  
• Opera prior to 7.5 (this one's controversial!)
  

Useful resources

Evolt Browser Archive [browsers.evolt.org]
How to: Install multiple versions of IE on your PC [webmasterworld.com]