[thelist] Browser Emulator

George Dillon George Dillon" <george.dillon at ukonline.co.uk
Thu, 6 Jan 2000 18:56:52 -0000


> Has anyone heard of a tool which emulates different browsers?

I assume (for no very good reason) that a) you're using 
a PC and b) you want to test the sites you make in
both IE and NN and in versions 3 as well as 4+.

Browserola is indeed the only tool I know of but it
will not 'emulate' the *behaviour* of the various
browsers (i.e. JavaScript etc.) only copy their layout 
(and I don't know how good it is at aping Netscape's
many quirks ;-).

I've asked this (or a similar) question before, and 
concluded that the best thing to do for real-scenario
type testing was to install an *EARLY* version of
the 16-bit IE3 (you might find one on the evolt site).
(I believe NN will allow you to run both 3 and 4 on 
the same box anyhow).  BUT BE WARNED, you might get 
some nasty side-effects doing it with IE (losing "Find
text on this page" for one!").  I originally tried it with version 
3.03.2925 and suffered big time.  Then Oliver Lineham 
told me it worked for him with 3.0.1152.  I then searched
a stack of ancient ISP trial disk, found 3.0a.1563 and 
installed it by extracting the files from the .cab (NOT
running the install program). No problems since.
(And thanks again to Oliver for pointing me here :-).

As for Mac versions, I guess you need a Mac!