Let’s say that you worked for a company which develops web sites for its
customers. The company only uses and produces free software. So far so good.
However, it is important that web sites work for as many people as possible.
The best way to do so, is to follow the HTML standard and make sure that the
site works without CSS and JavaScript. That’s a good foundation.
Still, CSS and JavaScript will inevitably be written. It needs to be tested.
The problem is that not everyone uses free software; some do not know the
difference, some are stuck with an old Internet Explorer at work, and some
people say they prefer Chrome or whatever. (Note: I do not promote any of the
mentioned browsers.)
Apart from CSS and JavaScript, you might also want to test to connect to your
server with different browsers, as they might send different headers.
How would you approach this problem? Is it OK to install proprietary browsers
for testing purposes, just as it is said to be OK to use proprietary software
for reverse engineering purposes? Does that compromise the whole system? Can
you run them in some kind of sandbox? What could an “ideal” solution and
a “practical” solution be? Does anyone have experience with this?
