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As most web developers would attest, one of the most time consuming and challenging aspects of the job is to test and support your code across multiple browsers. A couple of years ago, one might have gone about testing with separate VMs that have different versions of browsers. Then along came tools such as IETester, which allow you to test across various versions of Internet Explorer (IE). By the way, if you keep up with our blogs, then you might recall Dave Paroulek's article on regression testing with Selenium. And then along comes Selenium Grid which allows for automated testing against a variety of browsers, versions and operating systems. Selenium Grid in itself is quite a powerful tool for testing applications, but throw it into the cloud ... And voila, you have SauceLabs (http://saucelabs.com) which provides a cross-browser testing environment as a service built with the Selenium Grid.

At the time of this post, Saucelabs currently provides support for the following browser versions(v): IE v6-v9, FireFox v3-v7, Chrome (all), Safari v3-v5, and Opera v9-v11. And they currently offer 2 modes for testing:
(1) Scout - for manual testing and
(2) OnDemand - for automated testing based on Selenium RC.

For instance, if you get a style-related bug report specific to a customer who is using IE7 and you're using a Mac, then this would be a perfect scenario to use the Scout tester to launch an IE7 session to test the issue out. With Scout, you simply kick off a testing session by entering the URL for the site and selecting the browser and operating system. And Saucelabs serves up a "browser in the cloud" for your test, and the provided browser contains developer tools which can be used to debug the issue. At the end of the testing, you also get a recorded video of the session which can be used to share with your fellow developers to collaborate on!

In another case, if you're building an application or site and you would like to create regression tests and provide support for multiple browsers. You could set up Selenium Grid in your own environment and this would definitely serve you well. But, if you don't have an environment to test for this case, no worries again as SauceLabs' OnDemand model comes to the rescue. With OnDemand, you can build test cases leveraging the Selenium IDE or SauceLabs' Builder plugin for FireFox. If you're site is behind a firewall, you can also run their Connect proxy which makes your site available to your specific SauceLabs OnDemand instance. After running your tests, you're provided with a record of the tests which can reviewed as shown below:

screenshot.33.png

So the next time you run into a browser-specific issue, before you hunt down a VM or other tools for testing it, give SauceLabs a try. They have graciously provided a free account with some free test time for Scout and OnDemand. I've used the Scout session on a number of occasions, and have found it to be very useful. If you tried out SauceLabs or have been using it, please share your experiences with it.