Sauce Labs and Microsoft have partnered to announce BrowserSwarm, a project to streamline JavaScript testing of web and mobile apps and decrease the amount of time developers spend on debugging application errors.
BrowserSwarm is a tool that automates testing of JavaScript across browsers and mobile devices. It is said to reduce server space and the time required to manually run tests.
It connects directly to a development team's code repository on GitHub. When the code gets updated, BrowserSwarm automatically executes a suite of tests using common unit testing frameworks against a wide array of browser and OS combinations.
BrowserSwarm is powered on the backend by Sauce Labs and allows developers and QA engineers to automatically test web and mobile apps across 150+ browser / OS combinations, including iOS, Android, and Mac OS X. After tests are run, users will have a report that includes screenshots, video, and logs to inform them of what needs to be fixed for each browser, including modern and older versions of those.
"In early September, Sauce Labs expanded its platform to support JavaScript unit testing," said John Dunham, CEO and cofounder of Sauce Labs. "Through our partnerships with Microsoft and appendTo, BrowserSwarm will play a vital role in ensuring developers spend less time fixing web and mobile application errors and more time on app innovation."
Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) team collaborated on BrowserSwarm to help make it easier for developers to test JavaScript frameworks across modern browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and IE9+. To help test sites in all versions of IE, the team also included support for older versions. Projects like Dojo, Backbone, and Modernizr are already using BrowserSwarm to automatically test their frameworks cross-browser, with more joining the platform in the coming weeks.
"The web continues to evolve at a remarkable pace, with technologies like WebGL and touch-based input becoming part of web standards," said Justin Garrett, senior product marketing manager for Internet Explorer. "With more users browsing the web on an increasing range of devices and browsers, developers have their hands full with making sure their websites are compatible for everyone. BrowserSwarm is our most recent partnership, along with the free virtual machines and scanning tools on modern.ie, to help developers spend less time testing and more time innovating for the web."
