Cross Browser Compatibility Testing On Apple macOS Mojave And Safari 12

Apple launched its operating system named macOS Mojave last week. It comes with improved performance, as slick dark mode, and with new Safari browser version. Along with that it comes with new headaches for developers. But how could we let that happen??!!

Today we added new Apple macOS Mojave machines to LambdaTest cross browser compatibility testing platform along with the latest Chrome, Firefox, and Safari versions. Now you can test your web application on all browsers and browser versions supported by macOS Mojave to ensure your web applications remain unscathed with respect to these software upgrades.

To summarize, here is a list of our latest additions in our latest updates of LambdaTest platform:

1. MacOS Mojave
2. Google Chrome 69 Dev
3. Google Chrome 70 Beta
4. Mozilla Firefox 62 Dev
5. Mozilla Firefox 63 Beta
6. Safari 12
7. Geolocation Testing via Lambda Tunnel

September 2018 has been a month of blessing for the tech world. With Google Chrome celebrating its 10th anniversary by treating everyone with a major update as they declared chrome 69 stable. Also, deployed chrome 70 to beta stage.

Mozilla Firefox refused to be left out in the race, declared Mozilla Firefox 62 as stable & moved firefox 63 to Nightly Channel. To add the cherry on top, Apple came out with a bang! Bringing out its latest mobile variants, a new safari browser & a macOS update from 10.13(High Sierra) to 10.14 named Mojave.

So now the major question is, is your web application up-to-date and cross browser compatible across all these new platforms? Are you able to entertain your targeted audience through your website as they update their browsers and macOS?

Cross Browser Test on macOS Mojave

Apple released their new macOS 10.14 on September 24th 2018. They named it Mojave! This is the 15th major update for macOS with numerous new features like Continuity-camera, Quicklook, Dark mode, voice memos and many more that are making it look more promising and productive. Apple has also made an announcement that Mojave will come with pre-installed Safari 12 browser.

To know more details on macOS Mojave follow this blog.

We have added macOS 10.14 Mojave to LambdaTest platform along with all supported chrome, firefox, safari, and opera browsers. Now you can perform browser compatibility testing of your pages on latest as well as legacy browsers that are supported by macOS Mojave.

Cross Browser Testing on Chrome 69

Google Chrome has been constantly updating their browser versions. “In the case of Chrome, those changes happen every six weeks to bring you new features and security updates, but our 10th birthday update is bigger than normal,” said Google Blog announcement. And they certainly exceeded the expectations of many, with a grand update meant to symbolize their grand occasion as they released the stable version on 4th Sep 2018.

Reimagining the complete UI with new icons, more rounded shapes, and a fresh colour palette. Other than the UI this version promises a better speed & accuracy while filling the passwords, addresses, and credit card numbers, to help you quickly go through online checkout forms. There is a lot more, visit their official blog for every particular detail.

Enhancements in Chrome 69

Chrome 69 will provide CSS scroll snap points are featured to provide a customizable scrolling experience. CSS conic gradient to help you facilitate smooth transition of colors as a CSS image. OffscreenCanvas object is introduced which is a lot like HTMLCanvasElement to aid context rendering but the difference is that OffscreenCanvas can perform even without a connection to DOM. CSS Logical Properties & Datalist Elements which were partially supported in legacy versions are now fully compatible.

Some Depreciations in Chrome 69

For optimizing the browsing experience, Chrome has deprecated some feature like Public Key Pinning Extension for HTTP. Chrome 69 will also be removing ‘stalled’ event from HTMLMediaElements for better Media experience. Along, with that the call window.confirm() which no longer activates its parent tab & the
document.createTouchList() has also been removed.

Cross Browser Testing on Chrome 70 Beta

Chrome 70 has been in the beta state since 13th Sep 2018. Introducing Shape Detection API to help recognize faces, text in images and barcodes through the web without decelerating the performance. They are also bringing an update in their Web Authentication API in regards to “PublicKeyCredential “ type.

Enhancement in Chrome 70

Chrome 69 will be providing referrerpolicy support to script elements along with the change in element which now by default will provide the value to display:none.
As a part of media enhancement, Chrome 70 will be supporting AV1 video format. Also, will be supporting codec and container switching with MSE through SourceBuffer.changeType().

There is a lot more to it, follow every detail through their chromium blog.

Some Depreciation in Chrome 70

For better interoperability, Chrome 70 will be removing AppCache from insecure contexts. Along with that, they are removing the non-standard anonymous getter for HTMLFrameSetElement. Other depreciations include Gamepads.item(), custom element v0, Shadow DOM v0 & HTML imports from one document to another.

Cross Browser Testing on Mozilla 62

Running toe-to-toe with Google, Mozilla Firefox 62 Dev was released on September 5th 2018, just a day after Chrome 69 was declared stable. Making a noticeable UI change by allowing a user to display 4 rows of top stories, pocket stories as well as highlights in default new tab A.K.A Firefox Home. Changed the manner through which WebRTC used to handle screen sharing.

Providing FreeBSD supports for Web Authentication. Stabilized 20 bug fixes for enhancing security. Although, one of the unresolved issues is regarding macOS Mojave where the file management seems to fail. Variable fonts & CSS Shapes Level 1 are now available to help you portrait text inside geometric shapes through CSS.
Also, CSS display: contents that help in generating CSS formatting box tree, was partially supported in legacy versions is now made fully compatible.

Refer to their official release notes to catch up every inch of information.

Cross Browser Testing on Mozilla Firefox 63 Beta

Released on the same date as Mozilla Firefox 62 was made stable. Improvised integration with Windows 10 in order to match Firefox theme with OS Light/ Dark mode.

Also, provided faster tab switching to macOS with better reactivity. You can now cycle through multiple tabs with respect to you recently used tabs using the Ctrl+Tab shortcut. In new profiles, this is working as default behaviour but it can be changed through preferences if one wishes to!

Other than that, a user can now minimize the amount of animation as the prefers-reduced-motion feature will be supported. Mozilla Firefox 63 Beta will also support custom elements v1 and Shadow DOM v1.

For more information visit their official release note for the 63.0 beta.

Cross Browser Testing on Safari 12

Made available for macOS Sierra(10.12) and High Sierra(10.13) on 17th Sep 2018. Apple declared that Safari 12 will come pre-installed in macOS Mojave(10.14). This update is said to facilitate a more robust, secure and faster web browsing experience.

It will do so by preventing embedded content & social media buttons to perform cross-site browsing until user grants access. Other than that, Safari 12 will offer suggestions for generating a strong password. As an end-user, you can also flag the reused passwords. In terms of speed, this update will be reviewing the archaic items related to web extensions that were untouched by Apple until now. Safari 12 will be disabling that extensions that may end up killing the browser performance, so it now more essential to test on Safari.

Enhancement in Safari 12

Safari 12 provides full support to APIs like Clipboard API and events so your API can cut, copy & paste events by acquiring access to macOS clipboard. Encrypted Media Extensions for providing content privacy by controlling key exchange.

WOFF 2.0 is fully supported as well, providing better compression of a font as compared to WOFF 1.0.

As a measure of stepping up the security, ‘Same-site Cookies’ attribute is introduced for the first party only, preventing the CSRF(Cross Site Request Forgery).

Apple is aiming to deprecate the legacy Safari Extensions and is also aiming to transit more extension onto Safari App Extensions.

September 2018 has certainly put a lot to gaze upon in the plates of web developers & tester belonging to big & small companies alike. Fortunately, our development team has made a remarkable effort to sum all of these updates into our product. Ensure your business product is up and running by performing cross-browser testing on latest browser versions and OS.

Your feedback is prestigious to us, so please feel free to comment about what has been the most involving feature and where you feel we can do better! Let us know about your thoughts on the latest update & help us improve with your valuable input. You can also leave us a message here or chat with us. Our product experts are always delighted to help you with any roadblock.

Also conduct a Test on macOS Catalina – verify cross browser compatibility online with your website. Test for free on the latest and older macOS Catalina to ensure cross-browser compatibility.

Happy Testing! 🙂