Solving ancient browser issues with cloud testing platform.
About a week ago, a client (let’s call him Malik) reported an issue — a very weird one, regarding a web application my team developed few years back. Malik could not click any button on the web page… yeah, that’s weird. Upon investigating, I realised that his device was at least a decade old. More-so, a very outdated web browser.
His phone was like an old cargo ship at bay; it somehow works, but no one around knows why or how to fix it if (and when) it breaks down.
So, we tested on all the devices we could get our hands on, but we couldn’t recreate the issue the customer reported. This is not a typical case of “it works on my machine” as developers sometimes say.
This issue Malik reported was related to Javascript (also JQuery) and was only ever reported by him since the application was launched about four years ago. After testing and debugging for few minutes with devices at hand, we decided to broaden our test to much older versions. So, we used a cloud testing platform. We were able to recreate the bug with Windows 7, Chrome version 20, then we could resolved it.
Cloud Web Testing Platform
There are many testing platforms out there but we already have account with BrowserStack and LambdaTest. This platform allows testing with very outdated browsers and devices.
LambdaTest for example, allow basic usage for free accounts as described below. However, to fully utilise the platform, I suggest purchasing a plan according to your need.
There are several benefits to using cloud testing platforms. Availability and affordability are amongst the advantages, when considering issues like that of Malik’s.
On Demand Nature (Availability): One benefit of cloud-based testing is that the environments are dynamic and readily available. We can test anytime with multiple versions on several devices.
Saves Cost (affordability): Cloud platform makes it really affordable to test on several devices. I vividly remember almost a decade ago, I needed to get as many devices to try apps on to be sure it wouldn’t crash in production.
Testing is very important and integral to the success of any application development. I think it is important to test frequently. With cloud platforms which are readily accessible, testing can be automated and scaled as needed. There are many awesome testing platforms out there used by developers in different organisations. However, BrowserStack and LambdaTest are amongst the ones me and my team uses.
The post is based on my experience and the opinions are mine alone… Have you used cool platforms different from the above? Feel free to share your experience!
