Adobe service puts browsers side by side

Adobe's BrowserLab is a hosted service that allows Web developers to visualize what their site looks like in different browsers.

(Credit: Adobe)

Adobe on Tuesday said it is offering a free preview of its BrowserLab service, which allows Web developers to quickly see what their site looks like on a number of browsers.

The technology, previously code-named Meer Meer, was shown last year at the company's Max developer conference. Using virtualization, the tool can show how a site will look in Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari running on different operating systems. Running BrowserLab requires a Mac or PC with Adobe Flash 10.

"Cross-browser testing has been one of the biggest challenges for Web designers because it is such an arduous and time-intensive task," Adobe's Lea Hickman said in a statement. "Now with Adobe BrowserLab, designers have a simple solution that enables comprehensive browser compatibility testing in just a matter of minutes, leaving Web designers with more time to be creative and deliver the high-impact sites customers are demanding."

Designers can compare a site in two browsers side by side as well as use an "onion skin" mode that shows a site in multiple browsers overlaid one on top of the other.

Adobe said that the preview version would be free, though it plans to charge at some point.

BrowserLab "will move to be a paid service down the line, though we have not announced the timing," Adobe product manager Scott Fegette said in a statement. "Currently the focus is on getting the preview out to users and making sure we're providing the best possible user experience."

Microsoft showed off a similar tool, SuperPreview, at its Mix09 event in Las Vegas earlier this year. Microsoft announced that the latest version of its Expression Web software for Windows would include the feature and show multiple browsers via a cloud-based service. It also made a free standalone version of SuperPreview available to allow users to compare how Web pages render in the three latest versions of Internet Explorer--IE 6, IE 7, and IE 8.

Fegette said that Microsoft's approach requires a large PC-based application.

"All we know is what was announced about SuperPreview a couple months ago at Mix, which at its core appears to be a large, Windows-only desktop application available for download which provides previewing support for locally-installed versions of Internet Explorer 7 and 8 alongside a dedicated IE 6 emulator, with the promise of 'cloud-based access' to alternate operating systems and browsers at an undisclosed point in the future," Fegette said.

BrowserLab's "onion skin" view compares how a Web site looks in multiple browsers with different browsers' views overlaid on one another.

(Credit: Adobe)

[karpenterskids]

Wow, this is something I would definitely use!

Once they start charging for it, though, I think I'll go back to doing it the old-fashioned way.

[mkuk71]

@Karpenterskids - yeah, agreed. A most useful tool but not something I'd be prepared to pay for :(

[cg0def]

the tool does not support any of latest version of the major browsers ( apart from firefox ). It also does not allow you to test local sites since it uses Adobe's servers to connect and render. This makes it quite useless for developers since we test sites before we deploy them and Adobe is kinda going in the reverse order. Add support for IE 8 and Safari 4 and allow me to install it / run it on my local machine and I'd be even willing to pay a small fee for it. As it stands atm this is simply a technology demo for flash.

[stegic]

Adobe is late to the game. A little company with a very polished app called Litmus has been doing this for a while now. They also support testing email layouts as well, which is invaluable. Do yourselves a favor, check out the real competition before doing anything else: http://litmusapp.com/

[MadLyb]

I think everyone (including Litmus), but MS misses the point. Most developers do not build web applications in public, they run on internal networks or even our local machine, so making the solution cloud based is not understanding the design and development process and just chasing the latest fad.

[explodingzebras]

I'd rather just install ie4linux (WINE) which gives me access to IE6,7, and 8. Can also test in Firefox and Konqueror, and install Safari in WINE too.

[James7777777]

http://browsershots.org/

More complete list of browsers and been around for a very long time.

[JohnQueuePublic]

If you're going to include links to other CNet articles about this service and whatever else you've linked to in the story, why not post a direct link to the service you are writing about? I have seen CNet do this many times before (having the visitor jump through multiple articles just to find a link to whatever), and I find it highly annoying. If you're going to write an article about something, link directly to it in every article you write.

[achernow]

This is going to be incredibly useful!!

[sfegette]

A few notes and corrections to add from the Adobe perspective:
- Yep, there's many other solutions/apps/workflows for cross-browser proofing that we're aware of. We're just trying to solve this problem in our own way. Alternatives are always nice to have.
- Dreamweaver CS4 integration with BrowserLab lets you actually preview local interactive page/app content (ajax/db-driven data, widgets and UI elements driven by JS, etc) by 'freezing' a particular page state and sending it directly to BrowserLab (even from behind firewalls). Check it out, if you're so inclined. We've heard requests to eventually open an API for other web tools/apps to get in on this type of workflow too- sound interesting?
- The list of browsers and operating systems we support is expected to grow over time. We just launched the first preview of this service today after all, and are in no way finished in regards to browser/OS support in BrowserLab. Expect a regular flow of updates there.

Anyway, this is the first day of the first wave of the first public beta so we've obviously got a lot more ahead of us, please keep the feedback coming. Much appreciated.

best - Scott Fegette
Product Manager, Adobe BrowserLab

[Rodney336]

You should also look into Gomez's cross-browser compatibility product - http://www.gomez.com/products/cross-browser-compatibility-testing.php

It allows you to easily test apps behind the firewall across all of the browser & OS combos you'll ever need. You can even use remote access to test Ajax/RIAs, rollovers or full transactions across OSs and browsers.

Well worth a look

[xbdiff]

We're also working on a related product to BrowserLabs, but ours goes one step further. Instead of just giving screenshots to the user, we actually use algorithms to validate that the layouts are the same across browsers. And, we've got an integrated crawler so you can test many pages at once. With our system, you only need to review pages that actually have meaningful differences instead of going one by one. We're also currently in beta, you can check it out at http://www.xbdiff.com

[digish777]

Why is it that Adobes products are unbearable costly.

May be it is some thing US people can afford.

Web Expression cost you 100$ from MS. While Dreamweaver from Adobe cost you three times that price.

[wolfanotaku]

Well I tried a few of the other solutions listed here and I'm sorry to say it would seem that they really don't solve the problem very well. Litmus wouldn't give me a side by side and took a very long time to reload and when I gave BrowserShots a simple CSS+HTML website it told me I was in a queue of 5 minutes. In business we need something not only accurate but also very fast. It would seem adobe is having some issues but I'm going to keep up to date on their progress. I know that company can get this right.

[billupsdesign]

Speaking for the original developers of BrowserLab (previously named by us as Meer Meer), I can confirm what Scott from Adobe is saying. This tool is currently in beta for free trial and is accordingly scaled back on some features, etc. It was designed and developed with all the alternative tools (mentioned above) in mind and it was engineered to be much, much better. Users of DreamWeaver will notice the more robust feature offering (and will be able to test locally) and the much more timely turnaround of their test results. We're excited (and proud) to see BrowserLab introduced by Adobe! It's already changing the testing game.

[cheinyeanlim]

BrowserLab can integrate with Dreamweaver CS4 so you can test web page designs from within the WYSIWYG HTML editor without having to publish pages on to an external web server.

http://www.pupuweb.com/blog/an-easier-faster-solution-for-cross-browser-testing-with-adobe-browserlab/

[Jayman1305]

Another option may be to use a product by http://www.multibrowserviewer.com

They seem to support over 40 browsers in 3 os configurations and presented me with 40 screenshots in under 7 minutes.

Solved cross browser testing for me. Loved the web archive functionality and html validation as well.

[gruimed]

Please check http://www.browserseal.com/ - although it supports less browsers, it can easily beat BrowserLab in terms of speed.