So, we’ve had a few posts on ways to make browser testing easier. These work for 99% of the testing you’ll need. What happens though, when a client has IE 6 running on XP SP1 or Firefox 2 running on OSX 10.3, and they have a problem with their site? You’d need to maintain a warehouse full of computers to have every possible combination of OS and browser.

This is where Browsercam’s Remote Access service comes in very handy. Once you signup, you can remotely login (via VNC or your browser) to one of their remote access machines. Once you know the operating system and browsers you need to test on, you can just find a compatible machine from their list of Remote Access machines. You won’t find every possible combination, but at worst you’ll get very close to what you need. I’ve used it quite a few times to eliminate bugs from layouts. Plus, since you have control of the remote machine, you can test things like javascript and flash, which isn’t possible with screen captures only.

Remote Access isn’t a tool you’ll likely need every day, but it can be a life saver for those hard to fix bugs.