Oct 14, 2009
A substantial amount of time spent by front-end developers is directed at ensuring that a web page is correctly rendered as excepted or as in the design previously provided and since there are at least four primary web browsers that need support and consistency, it is definitely a Herculean struggle.
Unfortunately, not all users keep their software applications up-to-date, thus the duty of ensuring a multi-browser and a multi-version consistency falls on the developer shoulders, but front-end designers need to consider not only previous versions of the browser in cause, but also its versions on both the Windows platform and the Mac OS X, too.
Since you can not install multiple versions of the software on the same machine, either be Windows or Mac OS X, various tools have appeared that makes this assignment more convenient. These tools, includes Browser Shots(1), IE Tester(2), IE NetRenderer(3), Adobe BrowserLab(4), etc.
Sadly, these platforms are capable of only providing screenshots, thus not giving the developer the possibility to interact with the web page, but they are also incapable of reproducing the same environment of the browser you are testing upon. This inconsistency may give issues that are not reflected in the default browser circumstances.