If you would like to see what users in other countries see when they visit your site, perhaps you are serving up different content or ads based on their IP’s geolocation, then you will love this use of our Local Connection feature. It is straightforward and easy to use, works for live testing and screenshots, plus it is free!
By default, all of your testing comes through our servers here in the U.S. However, you can set the system so it uses your current location or that of another computer that has an http proxy running on it. If you are located outside the U.S. and want to see what your page would look like from your current location, just follow these simple steps:
1) Run a local connection by pressing the ‘Local Connection’ button in the Test Center.
2) Take the default ‘Internal Web Sites’ option, and click connect.
This configures your pc to act as the web proxy for all requests – all traffic on CrossBrowserTesting.com’s browsers that you launch are sent through your pc, so they will show your location.
To run from another location, you will need to have access to an http proxy in that location. To do that, we went to http://www.xroxy.com to find an open http based proxy. We filtered the list to show only http proxies. It might take you a couple tries to find one that works, though as you will see in the video below, my first pick worked great. The hardest part of this process will be finding an http based proxy that is open, available, and reliable…
Here is a quick video I recorded to show you how quick and easy it is. First, I connect and show that the browser is connecting from the U.S. and then I show how to make it appear we are browsing from China.
To get started with your own testing:
1) Run a local connection by pressing the ‘Local Connection’ button in the Test Center.
2) Select the ‘Advanced Options’ link under the ‘Internal Web Sites’ option.
3) Select ‘Your proxy server’, and enter the IP address and port of the proxy you want to use (122.72.80.107 port 80 in China was working when I recorded the video).
4) Press connect.
That’s it! Run your tests and you should see your location being reported as whatever country you chose. If you have geo based content and/or ads, you will be able to see if they are working as desired.
We hope you enjoy this feature. If you give it a try, let us know what you think.