Updated March 28, 2023
Introduction of Website Testing Tool
In the year of 2011, apart from the great earthquake in Japan measuring 8.9 on a richer scale, there was another news of Sony spending around 14 Billion Yen which is approximately $171 million. Phew! That’s a lot of money! And any idea on what it was spent? No, not on any R&D project, not in any innovation, but to contain the cost of a massive security breach that affected around 100 million online users of Play Station Network. Once the damage is done, the company also had to cover for insurance of theft, improvements in the security network, and an investigation into the hack. Now, just think of the same scenario for yourself; as your website gets most popular, you would need to improve the testing before it goes live to protect it to the maximum from any cybersecurity threat out there! In this topic, we will see the different website testing tools in detail.
Explanation of Website Testing Tool
As we start talking more about website testing, let us formally define the topic. The process of checking the website application for any potential bugs, threats, ability to handle traffic, and other functional aspects before launching it in production. And nowadays having internet become an integral part of our lives, it has become even more valuable for us to take care of whatever we bring to the internet, and also we can’t part our way from the internet as anything and everything that’s a part of the business we want to expand must be marketed over internet to reach to a larger audience.
As the application becomes more and more complex, the testing must also be at a level that even the slightest mistake is visible and needs to be tested end to end. And for this reason, website testing is not one but a bunch of six different types of testing, and there are different tools we can use for performing these testing. Some tools are intended to solve only one type, but some of them might be able to cover 2 or more types of website testing. Let us first look at the different types of testing in the genre of website testing, and then while discussing individual testing; we would talk about the tool’s user might be able to use to take care of that aspect.
Top 7 Website Testing Tool
The different testing on the checklist are:
1. Functionality Testing
When a web application is developed, it is developed with some intent in mind. The specifications are listed as functionalities of the product or application, and that is what is tested for when the development phase is done. All the links in the webpage are well tested for and made sure that there are no broken links. The different types of links that need to be tested as a part of this part of the branch are Outgoing links, internal links, anchor links, and the MailTo option link. Some of the other links which are very crucial nowadays are the ones to the social media platforms. In functionality testing, we would also test if the test forms are also working as per the expectation. For example, we need to check if a mandatory field is not filled in the form, then one shouldn’t be able to submit. The next type of thing that needs to be tested is the cookies, which essentially remember users’ active sessions. Also, the cookies need to be deleted if the cache is cleared or it reaches its expiry. In this, we would also need to test the HTML and CSS in the website and the business workflow of the site so that we maintain what’s the most important aspect of the website to propagate the business. Selenium, sauce labs are some tools that are widely used in the industry.
2. Usability Testing
This testing is vital for any kind of project as it is carried out by a small group of people who simulate themselves as the target audience of the web page. This set of people scarp through the website’s entire content and look for proper navigation, i.e., if all the buttons, menus, etc., are visible and accessible and testing the website’s content like no grammatical mistakes present, or images present in “alt” text. Crazyegg, Optimizelyare some tools which are widely used in the industry.
3. Interface Testing
In this genre, there are 3 areas of testing to be done, and they are:
- Application: This testing requires the tester to analyze and check if the request to the database and output from the database to the application is intact. If there is any error, the administrator should report the same and not to the user.
- Database Server: The tester must look at if the request to the database is reporting out the correct results.
- Web Server: Here, one should check if the application handles all application requests without service interruptions.
Squish, TestCompleteare some tools which are widely used in the industry.
4. Compatibility Testing
All the different compatibility needs to be verified in this step viz the browser compatibility tests if the content is the same irrespective of the browser it has been shown at and the mobile browser compatibility. Also, one should check that there should be no dependency on the operating system, especially some local variables of the OS or in other words, the application should be OS agnostic.SpoonBrowser, Microsoft SuperPrevieware some tools which are widely used in the industry.
5. Database Testing
In case there are various transactions has been made to the database, one should check for the possibility of errors in the database like, no errors during execution of the query, data integrity is given the utmost importance, response time of execution of the query, and many more such things.AnyDbTest, DBFitare some tools which are widely used in the industry.
6. Performance Testing
This testing is to make sure that our application will work irrespective of the load provided to the application (obviously within limits). One needs to check the application response time at different internet connection speeds, find if there is any bottleneck of the application where there is a possibility of performance degradation, recovery of a site if there is a crash, and many such minute performance details. Apache JMeter, WebLOAD, LoadView are some tools that are widely used in the industry.
7. Security Testing
In today’s scenario of numerous cyber threats, this testing is possibly the most valuable of the lot and needs to be carried out with utmost perfection. One needs to test only authorized access if present for the website and secure pages; the files which have restricted access should be downloadable only with appropriate access, redirection to SSL pages when there is the use of SSL certificates, and killing of sessions after prolonged inactivity from the user. Arachni, Grabberare some tools which are widely used in the industry.
Conclusion
In conclusion, different types of testing will enable organizations to build a rock-solid defence system against attacks of cyber bullies and try to safeguard the website from such attacks. All these precautions will go a long way in saving the huge expenses mentioned in the first paragraph of the article for any organization. All in all, the one should make sure that the work plan is developed at the start of the testing and take it through a round of discussion among the group to make sure we cover everything.
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