How Selenium WebDriver Helps Perform Cross Browser Testing
Published: 2023-08-29 06:36:07

Cross-browser testing is crucial to web application testing because each web browser has unique features, a rendering engine, and compatibility issues. As a result, web developers and testers must perform cross-browser testing to ensure their web applications work flawlessly across different browsers.

In today’s digital age, where users access web applications through a wide range of browsers and devices, it has become essential to test web applications across different browsers. Cross-browser testing ensures that web applications have a consistent look and feel across all devices, operating systems, and browsers.

Perform cross-browser testing; several browser testing tools are available in the market. One such tool is Selenium WebDriver, a popular test automation platform that allows web developers and testers to automate their cross-browser testing process.

**Selenium WebDriver**
Selenium WebDriver is a popular test automation platform that allows web developers and testers to automate their testing process. It is a tool that backs many programming languages. Selenium WebDriver automates web browsers to perform cross-browser testing across different platforms and devices.

Selenium WebDriver supports multiple web browsers. It also supports various operating systems. Selenium WebDriver uses a browser-specific driver to automate the web browser, and it provides a set of APIs to interact with the web elements on the web page.

## Cross Browser Testing

**Step 1: Install Selenium WebDriver**
You must install Selenium WebDriver on your system.

**Step 2: Install Browser-specific Drivers**
Once you have installed Selenium WebDriver, you must install the browser-specific drivers. Selenium WebDriver uses these drivers to interact with web browsers. Each web browser has its driver. After downloading, you can add the driver’s path to the system’s PATH environment variable.

**Step 3: Create a Test Case**
After installing Selenium WebDriver and browser-specific drivers, you can create a test case to automate the cross-browser testing process. In this test case, you need to specify the web application URL, the web browser you want to test, and the actions you want to perform on the web page.

**Step 4: Run the Test Case**
Once you have created the test case, you can run it using Selenium WebDriver. Selenium WebDriver will launch the web browser and perform the actions specified in the test case. To perform cross-browser testing, you can run the test case on different web browsers and operating systems.

## Advantages of Selenium WebDriver
There are several advantages of using Selenium WebDriver for cross-browser testing. Some of these advantages are:

**Supports Multiple Web Browsers: **Selenium WebDriver supports multiple web browsers. This feature is essential to developers. It empowers their testing requirements by allowing web developers and testers to test their web apps on all these various browsers and ensure cross-browser compatibility.

**Supports Different Operating Systems:** Selenium WebDriver supports operating systems. This allows web developers and testers to test their web applications on different operating systems and ensure cross-platform compatibility.

**Easy to Use:** Selenium WebDriver provides user-friendly APIs. It also provides a wide range of features, such as screenshots, logging, and error handling, which makes it easy for web developers and testers to write and execute test cases.

**Scalability:** Selenium WebDriver can be integrated with test automation frameworks and tools such as TestNG, JUnit, and more. This allows web developers and testers to automate their cross-browser testing process and scale their testing efforts.

**Open Source:** Selenium WebDriver is an open-source tool, which means it is free to use and can be customized according to the user’s requirements, making it ideal for small and medium-sized businesses with a limited testing budget.

## Browser Testing Tools
Apart from Selenium WebDriver, several other browser testing tools are available in the market. Some of these tools are:

**BrowserStack:** BrowserStack is a cloud-based browser testing tool that allows web developers and testers to test their web applications across different browsers and devices.

**Sauce Labs: **Sauce Labs is another cloud-based browser testing tool that allows web developers and testers to test their web applications across different browsers and devices. It provides many features, such as automated testing, live testing, and more.

**HeadSpin:** HeadSpin is a software testing platform with tools that allows web developers and testers to test their web applications for cross-browser compatibility.

## Conclusion
[Cross-browser testing](https://www.headspin.io/solutions/cross-browser-testing) is a crucial part of web application testing, and it ensures that web applications work flawlessly across different browsers, operating systems, and devices. Selenium WebDriver is a popular test automation platform that allows web developers and testers to automate their cross-browser testing process. It supports multiple web browsers and operating systems and provides a simple and easy-to-use API to interact with the web elements on the web page.

Apart from [Selenium WebDriver](https://www.headspin.io/blog/selenium-webdriver-tutorial-to-conduct-efficient-webdriver-automation-testing), several other browser testing tools are available in the market, such as BrowserStack, Sauce Labs, and HeadSpin. These resources offer many options for testing web apps across multiple browsers and ensuring their compatibility with all users.

Original Source: https://biographyer.com/how-selenium-webdriver-helps-perform-cross-browser-testing/