Safari is one of the finest web browsers available today and has a large user base. With a lot of features mimicking the iPhone, Apple's Safari browser has redefined the way users have been accessing the Internet. The browser has more than 250 features and a number of characteristic advantages that distinguish it from the other major contemporary browsers like Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer.

Safari has established itself in the market over time and has garnered a loyal user base.

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As of October 2018, Safari is the second most popular browser among the users! Well, that makes it quite important for all the business owners and stakeholders to make sure that their business website (or any website, for that matter) performs as expected in the Safari browser.

Although you can install different browsers and perform testing accordingly, you cannot install something that is not compatible with your platform. Here is where the need to use some special tools and techniques sets in. Automatic tools that help us with the testing process are almost mandatory today and a tester’s best friends! Here are the top ways in which you can perform Safari browser testing on Windows.

Installing Safari on a Windows Machine

Well, like everyone else, the first method that you could think of would be to easily install Safari on your Windows machine and get started with the testing process. Smooth enough? But, there is an issue with this method. As Apple launched Safari 6.0 for OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, it seems to have suspended all the efforts to continue developing Safari for Windows. Safari 5 is still available for Windows, but it does not make much sense to test your product on a dated version! Does it?

The Windows users may still download and install the browser Safari in its version 5.1.7. The dated version works perfectly fine on Windows 10, Windows 8, or Windows 7. However, being a dated and older web browser version, it does not support any of the new Safari web features. Apart from that, the browser has a number of potential security flaws.

Being a tester, you would always be looking for the latest available software. Hence, this older version is not of much use for you, until you want to specifically test your product on it for theoretical purposes.

Using the Oracle VM Virtualbox

VirtualBox is a free-to-use tool developed by Oracle. The tool lets you run and experiment with a variety of tools and operating systems, which natively cannot be run on your device. The Virtualbox sets up a virtual environment on your device and lets you overcome a lot of incompatibility software issues. In case you want to test your product on Safari browser but do not own a Mac device, you can download the Virtualbox by Oracle and get started with testing on the latest version.

You can easily install Oracle VM Virtualbox on your device and run Safari on it. Download the VirtualBox software along with its extension pack and install the software file followed by running the VirtualBox manager. You need to immediately close it after running it. This will let your system log some necessary information.

VirtualBox is undoubtedly one of the most preferred free tools for virtualization on Windows. However, another point to keep in mind is that the Oracle VM VirtualBox does not still have the official for OS X and you need to download the main program along with the Extension Pack, which will provide you with the much-needed support for USB devices. You may need the Hackboot 1, Hackboot 2 ISO files along with the MultiBeast 4 to get some additional features like audio working fine post installation.

Using Cross-Browser Testing Tools

To make your life easier, a lot of online cross-browser testing tools are available.

With the help of cross-browser testing tools, you can get an on-premise infrastructure of your choice. These tools help you to test on desktop, mobiles, and tablets on various browsers. You can run any browser irrespective of the machine you are using directly in your web browser. All you need to do is just login and you can get a list of machines and browsers out of which you can choose your requirements and you’ll get the desired configuration in your browser itself.

You can even get a mobile(iOS or Android) in your desktop browser. These amazing platforms are a real lifesaver. You can choose from tools like LambdaTest to perform real-time testing of your webpage or application to make sure that it works well irrespective of the platform being used by the user. If you cannot access a particular browser, like Mac users cannot access IE, or Windows users cannot access the latest versions of Safari (in this case), even then tools like LambdaTest come handy.

You can easily make sure that your web application or website is cross-browser compatible with all the versions of Safari browsers even from your Windows machine or test on Internet Explorer from your Mac Machine.

The best part about these tools is you don’t need to install anything. You can access a machine directly from your browser.

This all-in-one testing tool would even allow you to capture automated screenshots and test your locally hosted web pages.

Thus, these were some of the quick methods to test your website on Safari using a Windows machine.

Cross-browser testing is one of the most crucial aspects of development and testing. With a constantly increasing number of browsers, it becomes difficult for the developers to keep a track of all the results and comparisons. The problem becomes even more complex if your local machine does not support a given browser. So with some tips and tricks, you can easily overcome this hurdle and make a cross-browser compatible website.

Happy developing! And...happy testing!