Different Testings

Testing is an art than science. There are different testings for different purposes to ensure the software quality. The goal is same, but the process, strategy and methodology are different from different testings.

Correctness testing
Correctness is the minimum requirement of software, the essential purpose of testing. It is for software quality, also called function testing.

Black-box testing
test data are derived from the specified functional requirements without regard to the final program structure. It is also termed data-driven, input/output driven, or requirements-based testing.

White-box testing
the structure and flow of the software under test are visible to the tester.

Performance testing
a process that focuses on testing individual components of the web app, such as databases, algorithms, network infrastructure, and cache layers under certain load

Load testing
a process of determining how an application under specific volumes of load, usually a range of the upper and lower limits expected by the business. Endurance testing is also part of this testing type.

Stress testing
a process of identifying when and how systems fail (and recover) under extreme levels of load. Also known as negative testing or destructive testing.

Reliability testing
a process of finding the probability of failure-free operation of a system.

Security testing
identifying and removing software flaws that may potentially lead to security violations, and validating the effectiveness of security measures. Simulated security attacks can be performed to find vulnerabilities.

I summarized above testings based on below excellent blogs and paper. It is interesting to understand these terms better while working with QA (quality assurance) team in daily work.
http://agiletesting.blogspot.com/2005/02/performance-vs-load-vs-stress-testing.html
http://agiletesting.blogspot.com/2005/04/more-on-performance-vs-load-testing.html
http://blog.browsermob.com/2008/12/performance-vs-load-vs-stress-testing/
http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/des_s99/sw_testing/