Litmus has released Alkaline 1.0 for Mac OS X. It’s a cross-browser testing tool for web designers and developers, letting them test their website designs on 17 different Windows browsers right from their Mac desktop in seconds.

According to the folks at Litmus, since Alkaline uses a vast remote grid of Windows computers to gather website screen shots, no installation of Windows is required, nor is any other additional software.

Using Alkaline in combination with Coda and Textmate plug-ins gives the best possible testing experience. It allows for instant cross-browser webs site testing from right inside these coding tools.

Alkaline was developed for Litmus by Shiny Development. It’s available with Mac OS X 10.5 (“Leopard”) or higher.

Alkaline 1.0 is free of charge to test web site designs in two browsers (Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2.0 on Windows). To access all 17 available web browsers the user can either purchase a 24 hour pass for US$24 or a monthly subscription for $49 per month.