I'd been using Browser Shots as well as IE NetRender for a while, a couple days ago I received an FB message from a friend of mine with a link to the latter service. At work she has access to Internet Explorer, on a PC, but at home she is a Mac user, just as I am. The woman who sent me this link taught me A LOT during my internship at a web development studio and I trust her professional and artistic opinion. It was reassuring to see that she implemented one of the same tools that I use for cultivating beautiful sites in all browsers.

I prefer IE NetRenderer because it is ÜBER FAST. It allows you to check how a website is rendered by Internet Explorer 7, 6 or 5.5, as seen from a high speed datacenter located in Germany. Just type in a URL hit render and wait a couple seconds. Unlike other screenshot services, they are able to process a large number of capturing jobs in parallel and in realtime, making it the fastest service that I know of and it's free.

There is one drawback. As far as I can tell you are only able to get a snapshot of the top part of the page you are checking so if it's important to see the footer you may want find a PC with that utterly despicable browser that is giving you trouble.

The other browser rendering service that I use is Browser Shots it's not as fast as NetRenderer but you have the more options here. For example you can select as many as 66 different browsers to test or chose the width of the shot. I'm usually checking up on one or two uncooperative browsers at a time so I simply untoggle all boxes which is an option at the bottom and then go from there. After choosing to render a specific URL you are redirected to a page that you need to refresh as new screens are loaded. The shots can take quite a while to process and depending on the time of day and how many shots you request you'll have to leave the window open or save the URL to go back every few minutes. It can be a tedious process, but if you dint have access to the browser you need to check this service can be invaluable.

The major drawback here is the time this service takes. Both services are great but if you're in a hurry use IE NetRenderer. Like most of the things I experienced while I was in Germany, IE NetRenderer's homeland, it's reliable, fast and efficient.