Cross Browser Compatibility

In earlier days, when the vast universe of the World Wide Web was introduced to people around the world, Internet Explorer was the only browser available to display static web pages. But, with time, new browsers were developed and the number of users which was merely 147 million in 1998 propelled to 4157 million in the current year.

As per GS counter, the following statistics show the usage share of different browsers in desktop as well as mobile devices. Each browser has their own rendering engine where HTML, CSS, and scripts are rendered differently. Some differences can slightly distort the display of a webpage. This matters a lot when advanced styling or animation is used in a webpage. Cross Browser Compatibility Testing is the way of testing a website across multiple browsers to ensure that the website behaves as expected in all of them without any distortion.

Why Do We Need Cross Browser Compatibility Testing?

Compatibility with Mobile Devices

In the current age of the mobile-first approach, users worldwide mostly use mobile devices to access websites. Android and iOS both have different browser usage share. Although the count is limited in iOS devices, in Android there are countless browsers with some mobile devices having their own local browser. It is important to check that your website is rendered properly in all of them for ensuring complete user satisfaction.

Performance of the Website

Performance of a website depends on the coding, the size of media elements and the browser’s capability to handle the code. You can observe that if your website has large images or animations, the loading speed varies across different browsers. This also matters if you have multiple tabs opened in a browser. Cross-browser compatibility is thereby important to check no matter which browser is used, the performance of the site is not impacted.

Checking the Accessibility of the Site

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines stated by W3C says that a website should be accessed by all, especially people with disabilities. Although there are many devices like the Screen reader or Voice Over that makes it possible for a physically challenged user to browse through a webpage without any difficulty, it is often observed that those devices do not work for certain web pages in certain browsers. A website should be cross-browser compatible to ensure that it can be accessed using those devices across all browsers, thereby abiding the accessibility guidelines.

Keeping up With Your Competitors

Nowadays, almost every website is cross-browser compatible. If your website is not cross-browser compatible, users facing issues with distorted webpages will hesitate to visit your website again and will switch to your competitor’s website offering the same services. To ensure that you keep up with your competitors and stay ahead with a great website that offers unique user experience, you must make your website cross-browser compatible.