This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 at 22:12 and is filed under Hacks, Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Are you a web designer needing to check how your perfectly XHTML and CSS tuned site looks breaks in Internet Explorer (IE)? Don’t really want to let your RAM and CPU cycles get bitten just to be only greeted with your dismay due to Parallels or VMWare’s overhead? Just want something fast to see what you have to fix, fix it, and then be done with it? Well, then you and other web designers can rejoice, ies4osx is here!
Using ies4linux by Sérgio Luís Lopes Júnior as the foundation for ies4osx, Kronenberg Informatik Lösungen (Mike’s the guy behind the big ‘ol German name) has brought to OS X for the first time Internet Explorer 5, 5.5, 6.0, and 7.0 beta without the need for a full blown virtual machine or a restart into Boot Camp. Nope, using just WINE and X11 windows, you’ve got a simple double click on the ies4osx icon of your choice (which poor standards version of IE will you open?) and up come Internet Explorer in a flash. Granted, I have a 3 GHz Mac Pro with 3 GB of RAM, but I know your whimpy Mac can open this nice and fast, too. 
Now “buyer” beware (this is donate-ware, by the way,) there is no support for Active X or Java. So, many people might be disappointed thinking that they will be able access certain sites such as QuickBooks Online which requires Active X. So know that this is mostly for testing sites and really for nothing little more.
All in all, this is a treat for those in need for a quick access to Internet Explorer without the fear of waiting for long start ups or large system resources overhead. Thanks, guys!
