Do you REALLY need to run your WebDriver tests in IE?

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3/17/2014

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Do you REALLY need to run your WebDriver tests in IE?

March 13, 2014 Selenium, WebDriver IE, Internet Explorer

I recently read that Microsoft are now on board to officially support Selenium WebDriver from Internet Explorer (IE) 11+

David Burns
@AutomatedTester

Biggest announcement at #WebDriver @W3C meeting today came from WebDriver implementation from @IE 11+
11:48 AM - 26 Feb 2014 65 RETWEETS 16 FAVORITES

Whilst I welcome the news, I try to avoid running WebDriver tests in Internet Explorer completely for the following reasons: Internet Explorer is a very non-testable browser. Whilst everyone agrees testability of your app is paramount, testability of its run-time container, the browser, is equally important. Settings such as security zones, proxies and auto-complete in IE must be manually configured on each machine instead of being programmatically specified by profiles in Firefox and Chrome; and Because IE has historically been so hard to test, WebDrivers support for IE is much less mature and much less stable and efficient than Firefox and Chrome The only way automated UI tests can succeed (and the chances of success arent high to begin with), is if they are fast and consistent. WebDriver against IE is neither (I see it more of a problem with IE than WebDriver). So if you want to use WebDriver, dont test against IE, test against Firefox or Chrome. But, In my role as a consultant, I continually hear managers say that we must run our WebDriver automated tests in Internet Explorer. Theres usually one or two reasons given: 1. Our web app is for internal staff only and our only supported browser is IE (which is usually IE8); and/or 2. Our web app (or the one we pay for) has been specifically coded to work only in IE and therefore its not possible to test in another browser. You need to explain that your WebDriver automated tests arent the only tests youll run against your app. In a corporate environment (such as those who only support IE8), chances are youll have a period of business acceptance testing or user acceptance testing. This will be conducted by users in the browser they use, so this straight away mitigates the risk of only running your automated tests against a nonIE browser. From my experience testing many applications against older versions of IE, the one thing that doesnt work well (and causes web apps to break) is not the HTML but JavaScript support. If your app contains a decent amount of JavaScript you could write some JavaScript tests in a tool like js-test-driver and run these automatically
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Do you REALLY need to run your WebDriver tests in IE? | WatirMelon

3/17/2014

against older versions of IE automatically. That way you can be assured your JavaScript is working without having to deal with IE/WebDriver issues (and slow running tests). As for applications specifically coded to work in IE. Web standards exist for a reason and in my opinion its crazy to develop a web app that is tied to the implementation of a browser by a single vendor. Microsoft made IE11 purposely report itself to a web server as not being IE so Microsoft can avoid this exact situation happening in the future. Chances are if your app is hard-coded to only work in IE then it wont work in IE11 anyway. If it works in IE11, then itll work in Chrome and Firefox as they all follow web standards, and you can run your WebDriver tests reliably now. I believe youre better off not having any automated UI tests if you theres a mandate in place that you must run them against IE. If you cant automatically test your app in Firefox or Chrome, I believe youre better off spending your time manually testing your app in IE than trying to maintain a test suite that will never be efficient or reliable.
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