As more businesses migrate to the web, the demand for skilled software testers who can build and validate complex web applications has skyrocketed in the last decade. If you’re an aspiring software tester looking to take your first steps into this industry, you need to arm yourself with the right set of tools to make sure you can test web applications on all levels, from the front-end to back-end processes. Here are five web application testing tools that you should use at every stage of your testing process.
1) Google Chrome Developer Tools
Google Chrome’s Developer tools are a must-have for any developer. It has the most robust and easy-to-use set of tools on the market. Whether you’re looking at network traffic, debugging JavaScript, inspecting elements, or simply changing browser preferences, there is something in this suite of tools that will come in handy. Plus, it’s free! You can’t beat that. If you have been using Internet Explorer (IE) as your default browser, stop now! Using IE with its limited development tools for web developers isn’t doing your work justice. If you want to use CSS3 animations, for example, then Chrome is your best bet since it supports CSS transitions and 3D transforms.
Firefox: While Firefox doesn’t quite offer all of the same features as Chrome does, it does provide some useful testing tools like Firebug and an Add-on manager that lets you install plug-ins from Mozilla’s website.
2) Selenium WebDriver Extension
Selenium is the most popular and widely used software in web application testing companies. It’s provides a great automation framework that can be used with other testing tools to make it easier to automate a variety of tasks, such as clicking buttons, filling out forms, and validating text. Selenium also supports a wide range of browsers, which makes it easier to test websites across many devices.
Another advantage is that it has a JavaScript API that allows you to write tests in JavaScript instead of Java or Python. Its WebDriver Extention allows us to record your browser actions without having to use any programming language (JavaScript). For those who do not want to learn programming languages but still want to create automated tests, this is a good solution. It’s powerful enough for power users but simple enough for beginners. With Selenium WebDriver Extension, we can perform all the tasks we would normally have done manually by using its web driver functionality.
3) Selenium IDE
Selenium is a tool that can be used to test web applications and can record and playback a user’s actions on a web application. Selenium IDE provides a browser interface in which you can quickly write tests without the need for programming skills. It’s great for beginners! However, it doesn’t offer many advanced features like exporting your scripts or using your own customized scripts with it. You also don’t have access to some of its more powerful features unless you’re using Java code or JavaScript for recording scripts.
In order to work well with Selenium IDE or selenium shadow dom, you need good knowledge about how HTTP requests work in browsers, so if this isn’t something you know about yet then start by learning about these things before using this testing tool.
4) Watir/Watirio
Watir and WatirIO are open-source cross-browser web application testing tools that allow you to test your web application by running automated tests in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, or Safari. You can simulate user interactions with the application and verify how it responds to these actions. It is designed as an end-to-end solution for UI testing and works with popular frameworks such as Ruby on Rails, Django, PHPUnit, and Jasmine.
5) Cucumber
Cucumber is a free, open-source tool designed to support behavior-driven development. The language of choice is Ruby, but there are many other programming languages you can use to create your tests. You can run cucumber from the command line or by using a continuous integration system such as Jenkins. Either way, it’s able to test all sorts of web applications including AJAX and HTML5 apps. It has a very clear syntax that will be familiar to anyone with any experience in English. It’s also very good at explaining how everything works so that you don’t need to know much about software testing before trying it out.
