Chris Gilmer , Friday, January 4th, 2008

As a designer or developer, you most likely know the importance of testing, especially when it comes to web browsers. Now, you can either do things the hard way or the easy way. Hard way; install multiple browser and open your website in each one of them and screen shot away. Easy way; Browsershots.

Browsershots is a web based tool or gymnasium filled with monkeys that takes screen shots of your website in multiple browsers. Simply enter your URL, and select the Linux, Windows or Mac OS browser you wish to preview your site in as well as screen size. Browsershots will spin out screenshots from a number of distributed computers that will open and take screenshots, then upload them to a central server. It appears that the older the browser, the longer it will take for a screenshot. Up to 51 mins in some cases. (We had to wait just over 5 minutes to take a screen shot in a newer version of Firefox.)

Even though it could take some time to compile screen shots, it is an invaluable resource for quality assurance testing that every designer and developer should bookmark. If you cant wait for processing, $15 gets you a reserved spot in the priority seating section for quick turnaround.