As you’ll quickly discover, not all browsers render equally. Due to differing implementations (opinions) on the (X)HTML/CSS specifications, one browser may display your content as expected, while another may not. As such, web developers are forced to test their websites in multiple browsers (and even multiple operating systems).

However, don’t rush out and start installing multiple browsers and operating system virtual machines just yet. There is a way to get a general idea of how your website looks in other browsers/operating systems. There are two web tools that allow us to get screenshots of our website rendered by a specified browser.

The first is Adobe BrowserLab. This service, by Adobe, can provide us with screenshots from Internet Explorer 6/7/8 (Windows XP), Firefox 2.0/3.0/3.5 (Windows XP), Chrome 3.0 (Windows XP), Safari 3.0/4.0 (OS X) and Firefox 2.0/3.0/3.5 (OS X). These browsers support Javascript and Flash, and even allow you to specify a delay to wait before taking the screenshot (to compensate for any animations or Javascript executing). BrowserLabs provides quick delivery of screenshots and easy comparision of screenshots with multi-views and rulers. An Adobe account required to use BrowserLabs.

Browsershots is another such service. Browsershots gives you a greater selection of browsers and more control over them. Providing almost every browser made in the last 25 years and their various versions. Browsershots allows you to specify your preferred screen size, colour depth and Javascript/Java/Flash version or disable. Browsershots’ screenshot delivery is slower than BrowserLab’s and those screenshots may not always be full-length.

Now that you can view your website in multiple browsers, across multiple operating systems, you can start the gruelling task of tweaking your code to conform to all browsers.