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I want to test fallback if a browser isn't HTML5 ready. Is there an easy way to disable HTML rendering in Chrome?

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    I'm not sure this question even makes sense. What exactly are you trying to accomplish here, and what do you mean by testing if "a" browser isn't HTML5-ready? Which one? Doing something in BrowserA isn't necessarily going to tell you much of anything about how BrowserB behaves if a similar feature is disabled/unavailable. You need to test the browser itself.
    – Su'
    Mar 5, 2013 at 18:21
  • I'm using an HTML5 date picker. I want to test the jQuery failover.
    – Mike Cole
    Mar 5, 2013 at 18:54
  • Okay, but disabling HTML5 in Chrome–whatever that means, if it's even possible–will tell you what jQuery will do, in Chrome(not some other browser), if HTML5 is unavailable, which isn't even ever going to be an actual occurrence.
    – Su'
    Mar 5, 2013 at 19:49
  • I just want to make sure that the JQuery fallback is working properly. And disabling HTML5 is an actual use case - see Stephen's answer below.
    – Mike Cole
    Mar 5, 2013 at 19:56
  • You can replace the type=date with type=text, or you can test the page in Firefox (which currently doesn't implement its own datepicker).
    – Blazemonger
    Oct 8, 2013 at 16:36

4 Answers 4

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Firefox has an extension to enable/disable html5. I think it would be exactly what you are looking for if you are willing to your testing on Firefox. It is called HTML5toggle. Its description is:

Turn on or off browser support for HTML5

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    Unfortunately, this extension no longer works with modern versions of Firefox.
    – redburn
    Jul 31, 2014 at 14:01
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You cannot disable HTML5 rendering but if you can run an older version. Here is how:

<chrome-executable> --chrome-version=<version> --user-data-dir=<dir>

You must obviously have that version installed and it is possible to have multiple versions at a time on the same machine. You should notice there is a sub-directory for each version, for example one of my systems has 24.0.1312.57 and 25.0.1364.97.

With the above command-line and place-holders substituted, the correct version shall be executed. Note that you must not reuse an existing user-directory, simply point the user-data-dir to an empty directory where the user has write permissions and a profile for the specific version of Chrome will be created.

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    This directly contradicts @Zistoloen's response. Do you have a citation link for being able to have multiple Chrome versions installed?
    – Su'
    Mar 5, 2013 at 18:25
  • @Su' Does the Chromium source count? :) I'm an ex-chrome developer. The switch is visible in the open-source project's code. It would be complicated to prove it does what its name says but it is all in the code.
    – Itai
    Mar 5, 2013 at 19:00
  • What the citation is isn't important(though something like an actual tutorial or documentation would probably be a little better than eg. pointing at the repository), as long as there is one. There are two people making contradictory claims, and neither is showing proof. You can't both be right.
    – Su'
    Mar 5, 2013 at 19:39
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I think the easiest option is to override the user agent to something like IE8. You can do that in the Web inspector, go to settings > overrides > user agent.

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    This does not actually disable any HTML5 features the browser has.
    – redburn
    Jul 31, 2014 at 13:57
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You can't disable HTML5 rendering in Google Chrome.

Moreover, Google Chrome installations are user specific, so you can't use two different versions of Chrome in the same computer. Try to install an old version of Chrome (before 3.0.195: native HTML5 support) on another computer to test your website without HTML5 rendering.

Otherwise, try to use a web browser without HTML5 support like Internet Explorer 6.

In order to know support of HTML5 components for web browsers, you can visit this very useful website.

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  • Any other shortcuts? Do any other browsers support this?
    – Mike Cole
    Mar 5, 2013 at 16:47
  • I don't think so, just install old version of a web browser. I have edited my answer to give more information.
    – Zistoloen
    Mar 5, 2013 at 16:51
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    This directly contradicts @Itai's response. Do you have a citation link for not being able to have multiple Chrome versions installed?
    – Su'
    Mar 5, 2013 at 18:24

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