As every mature webdesigner and webdeveloper knows that are a lot of differences between all the different browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari,..) Each browser renders a webpage and lay-out a bit differently.
Being the good webdesigner and webdeveloper you want your website / application to look the same in all browser. For this you use CSS hacks and exceptions and so on…
But the problem was usually testing the lay-out in different browsers.
You can install usually different browsers a long each other but there was a problem with installing different versions of browsers.
Example: Internet Explorer 6 still is used a lot, but if you update your windows you get the Internet Explorer 7 (which renders pages very differently from the Internet Explorer 6). So once you upgraded to IE7 there was no real possibility to test or install IE6. This is a widely know problem for most of the webdesigners and webdevelopers.
Until recently you had 2 options:
Option 1: install a VMware OS with for each VMware a different OS with different browser version
This was not ideal because of all performance issues with VMWare and not practical for debugging
Option 2: use a portable version of the browser (as mentioned in my previous post “Portable Internet Explorer 7“)
This was working, but also not ideal since limited and not always stable.
The kind people from DebugBar (IE alternative for Firebug, like mentioned in a previous post “Firebug for IE“) created a new tool “IETester”.
This is 1 tool which has all the different interenet explorer browser engines build-in.
Official description:“IETester is a free WebBrowser that allows you to have the rendering and javascript engines of IE8 beta 1, IE7 IE 6 and IE5.5 on Vista and XP, as well as the installed IE in the same process.”
I tested it and this is what every webdesigner has been looking for, believe me!!!
No more messing around with VMWare and portable version. Just 1 tool for all versions of Internet Explorer, what more do you need.
Download it here: Download IE Tester
Or have a closer look at the official website: http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage
PS: you find the DebugBar (IE alternative for Firebug) there as well, a most have IE add-on
Screenshot of IE Tester:
June 25th, 2008 at 10:50
[...] Go to the author’s original blog: IE Tester :: The ultimate Internet Explorer version testing utility [...]
January 26th, 2009 at 16:31
Great! just what I needed. Nearly every website I write needs around 100 hacks just to get it to look right in IE6!!
February 11th, 2009 at 09:42
Thanks for the information, IETester requires more resources, so not opening in low configuration PC
May 6th, 2009 at 02:50
It looks like a nice piece of software. Thanks for information. I’ll try. Another useful solution is “Multiple IE” from TredoSoft. You can choose which versions of IE (each is standalone after instalation) you want to install. Unfortunately there isn’t IE8. Looks like they finished development in 2007.
Tony Wilson: omg, 100 hacks??? which ones?
I use hacks for png transparecy, for left/right margins if i’m floating something and for min-width/min-height if needed and thats mostly sufficient.
Sorry for my non-perfect english
July 4th, 2009 at 06:49
IETester requires more resources,its ultimate
thanks for information