IE7 mode in IE8 - localStorage is not undefined

Question

I'm writing a small localstorage script with cookie fallback. So far so good, i switch to IE7 mode inside IE8 and enter localStorage in the console expecting it to return undefined But it returns an object {...}

Is this normal? If yes, is there anyway for me to test my script without Virtual Machines?

Answer 1

Switching document modes etc is unreliable for feature detection testing. It's really only good for a quick render test.

The most reliable way to test browser issues is with a VM. You can download pre-configured VM's for IE testing or you could use a cloud based solution such as http://www.browserstack.com/.