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TheoCryst · Dec 19, 2005, 12:17 AM

As pointed out by this Slashdot article, Microsoft's Internet Explorer is officially dead on Mac. We all knew that Mac development for IE was long deceased, but in less than a month and a half it will not even be available for download from Microsoft's website. We all knew this was coming, but it still kinda took me by surprise.

I suppose this is a mixed blessing of sorts. Clearly losing that filthy, buggy piece of a spyware-trap is a good thing for Mac users worldwide. After all, does anyone really use IE as their primary browser?

Unfortunately, the Windows world does. Losing IE means losing access to a lot of stubborn IE-only websites. Many websites are finally opening up to other browsers (thanks in no small part to Mozilla and their excellent Firefox browser), but there are still some that refuse to budge. Most notorious among these are a small handful of banking sites. Thankfully my bank (Wells Fargo) works splendidly in Firefox (never tried it in Safari), so I have nothing to worry about. But I'm still downloading a copy for my archive right now, just in case it ever becomes necessary.

Thoughts?

rickey939 · Dec 19, 2005, 12:27 AM

You can always just change/enable the "User Agent" within Safari's Debug menu to work on "Internet Explorer only" sites...at least, it's worked for me when I've run across those sites.

wataru · Dec 19, 2005, 01:14 AM

I'm glad it's even deader. Now they can take IE off the lab Macs at school and I won't have to see idiots using it even though Safari and Firefox are right there in the Dock.

robisconfusedd · Dec 19, 2005, 02:36 AM

firefox owns all, i think i used internet explorer once on mac and was like wow this sucks compared to safari and then realized that firefox was faster than both of them

36 Days · Dec 19, 2005, 04:07 AM

Originally Posted by robisconfusedd

firefox owns all, i think i used internet explorer once on mac and was like wow this sucks compared to safari and then realized that firefox was faster than both of them

Firefox is the only browser that has a problem with the site I'm developing. A navigation image made of image slices works fine in all Safari and IE but in Firefox the image slices have a gap between them. Any solution?

alphasubzero949 · Dec 19, 2005, 04:23 AM

Originally Posted by rickey939

You can always just change/enable the "User Agent" within Safari's Debug menu to work on "Internet Explorer only" sites...at least, it's worked for me when I've run across those sites.

The User Agent menu in Safari is a POS. Some sites that require WMV + IE will still fuss about the specs. The other sites that require Windows 9x/NT/ME/2K/XP on top of WMV + IE will never work anyway.

As far as getting web developers to change their sites in order to make them non-IE friendly, good luck. Our marketshare is too small for them to give a rat's @ss.

Try this site on for size (one of MANY examples):
http://nbc4la.feedroom.com/

(This is KNBC in L.A.)

msuper69 · Dec 19, 2005, 10:10 AM

Originally Posted by alphasubzero949

The User Agent menu in Safari is a POS. Some sites that require WMV + IE will still fuss about the specs. The other sites that require Windows 9x/NT/ME/2K/XP on top of WMV + IE will never work anyway.

As far as getting web developers to change their sites in order to make them non-IE friendly, good luck. Our marketshare is too small for them to give a rat's @ss.

Try this site on for size (one of MANY examples):
http://nbc4la.feedroom.com/

(This is KNBC in L.A.)

NBC 4 in Columbus is the same.

My solution: screw 'em! I don't need to visit their stinkin' piece of crap website.

alphasubzero949 · Dec 19, 2005, 04:31 PM

I blame ActiveX. It's a cancer in web design.

MartiNZ · Dec 19, 2005, 05:59 PM

It's good to have something to celebrate, and rather unlike MS to give people that, so I think we should all savour the moment

.

hldan · Dec 19, 2005, 08:42 PM

I was sort of (Oh No) when I saw the message on the Mactopia webpage about I.E ending for the Mac platform but I have not used it in so long I can't remember. There are plenty of browsing choices for Mac. I really don't understand why Microsoft decided to no longer develop and update the browser for Mac.

Safari on Mac and I.E on Windows hasn't stopped all the other developers from making browsers for Mac and Windows. The funny thing is those developers have more competition against I.E on the Windows platform.
What I have discovered is that Microsoft only wants to support stuff for the Mac that has to be paid for in terms of Office.
Windows Media Player is very necessary but doesn't work on all sights.
Based on some of the internet limitations (because of MS monopoly) surfing can be a pain such as MTV and Yahoo but I have never felt sorry about having a Mac for internet use. Microsoft does these things on purpose to try and make Mac users feel that way.

osxrules · Dec 19, 2005, 09:08 PM

This is bad news IMO. Although IE is a bad piece of software, it still works on banking sites and what not when nothing else will. I agree that developers won't change so all that's going to happen is that Mac users lose more compatibility. It's the same deal with the Indeo video codecs. They decided not to update them for OS X so now every time I come across an Indeo encoded video, which is more often than I'd like, I have to use classic to watch/re-encode it.

On the other hand, the Intel Macs may offer a way to run IE6 in something like WINE and developers will for the most part keep compatibility with IE 5 on Mac so it might not be a big loss.

Cadaver · Dec 19, 2005, 09:12 PM

While Microsoft used to 'own' the browser market, its pretty clear they are nervous now, given the big inroads Firefox/Mozilla has had and the market gains the Mac has had.

If MS was smart, and really wanted to 'own' the web again, they'd not only continue to develop and improve IE for the Mac, they'd develop a Linux version as well. If all three were completely identical in terms of function and rendering, IE could have remained the de-facto standard.

Personally, I think everyone would be using a Microsoft browser if MS had continued development. Instead, they did what they always do... make a mediocre product and let it sit, simply to ride the sheer volume of their marketshare. MS has become the new IBM. Slow, lumbering and with no agility. Can't react to the market fast enough. And this will cost them in the end.

hldan · Dec 19, 2005, 11:11 PM

It's irritating how Apple fully supports the Windows platform in terms of software. They could have at least made some Mac only features in iTunes but they made it all the same on both platforms. Quicktime runs the same on Windows as it does Mac. Again, no Mac only features in QT.

dru · Dec 20, 2005, 11:10 PM

Ever try to use Yahoo's Music Video site? Click on a video and the site claims you must use Netscape 4 for Macintosh and NO OTHER browser:

We're sorry, but you must use Netscape 4.7x to use this application on a Macintosh. Download NOW.
Please use the following error code when writing to Yahoo! Help. (Error Code: 4)

Well I tried using that from 9.x in the past and it still bitched, never working. Their error message amounted to fraud. In fact their link to download Netscape 4 doesn't even work. I already had a copy and used that but the Yahoo site still didn't serve me videos.

We get "locked out" by being in a very small minority despite the supposed open *standards* for web content.

dru · Dec 20, 2005, 11:17 PM

Originally Posted by robisconfusedd

firefox owns all, i think i used internet explorer once on mac and was like wow this sucks compared to safari and then realized that firefox was faster than both of them

The latest release of Firefox (1.5) is a giant step backwards.

The new preferences are awful and some settings were not maintained on the upgrade from 1.0.7. Even Safari draws "arstechnica.com" correctly and Firefox (mac) still doesn't. Ars is hardly a non-mainstream website.

I can only DEPEND on Internet Explorer (mac) to give me Java-based chat windows that don't strobe like mad. Firefox was working until I installed the latest Java update...

Being a distant second-class net citizen gets very old.

mpancha · Dec 21, 2005, 11:15 AM

meh... no biggie. Like someone earlier said, if MS had continued development of IE on the Mac, it would be eons ahead of safari.

I only use Safari because when I started using iBooks, it was the only "mozilla" based browser out there. The only reason I dont use Firefox instead is because I have safari set how I want and don't care to go through configuring Firefox, and the load time on FF is too slow for my liking.

mikelauder · Dec 21, 2005, 11:20 AM

Safari isn't based on Mozilla: the rendering engine is based on KHTML, not Gecko.

Mike

mpancha · Dec 21, 2005, 11:22 AM

Originally Posted by mikelauder

Safari isn't based on Mozilla: the rendering engine is based on KHTML, not Gecko.

Mike

I stand corrected... regardless, I'm still only using Safari out of laziness and impatience on the extra 5 second load time for firefox.

wataru · Dec 21, 2005, 11:58 AM

Originally Posted by dru

The latest release of Firefox (1.5) is a giant step backwards.

The new preferences are awful and some settings were not maintained on the upgrade from 1.0.7. Even Safari draws "arstechnica.com" correctly and Firefox (mac) still doesn't. Ars is hardly a non-mainstream website.

I can only DEPEND on Internet Explorer (mac) to give me Java-based chat windows that don't strobe like mad. Firefox was working until I installed the latest Java update...

I call ******** on all counts.

1. The new preferences are a matter of taste, and at the very least are better than the sheet (why was it a sheet?).
2. Any settings that were removed from the UI are still available in about:config. If they took something out, it's because they figured most people don't need it. If you need it, you're probably a power user, so just use about:config. What exactly is missing from 1.0 anyway?
3. Ars renders the same in both Safari and FF1.5 on my system. What's different on your machine?
4. Do you have the latest version of the Java embedding plugin? I've found Java to be equally buggy in all browsers.

CharlesS · Dec 21, 2005, 04:43 PM

Originally Posted by mpancha

I only use Safari because when I started using iBooks, it was the only "mozilla" based browser out there.

1. Safari isn't based on Mozilla's engine - it uses KHTML instead (someone already pointed this out).

2. When Safari was released, there existed both Chimera (now Camino) and... Mozilla, both of which used Gecko, Mozilla's rendering engine. My memory is a little hazy, but I believe that Phoenix (Firefox's original name) might have been available for OS X at that point as well.

mpancha · Dec 22, 2005, 10:51 AM

here's another site that isn't so OS X friendly

http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/index.jhtml

and I quote: Detecting OS...

In order to offer a broad selection of full-length music videos on-demand and free of charge, MTV Overdrive uses Windows Digital Rights Management (DRM) to protect videos from unauthorized re-distribution.

Unfortunately, Microsoft's Windows Media Player Plug-in for Macintosh does not support Windows DRM. If DRM support becomes available for Macintosh, MTV will develop a version of MTV Overdrive that works on a Mac.

P · Dec 22, 2005, 11:33 AM

Originally Posted by 36 Days

Firefox is the only browser that has a problem with the site I'm developing. A navigation image made of image slices works fine in all Safari and IE but in Firefox the image slices have a gap between them. Any solution?

Not off the top of my head, no. In general, when you have rendering problem in Firefox with something that works fine in other browsers it is due to you making some trivial error that throws the browser into quirks mode (trying to emulate IE). Run your code through a validator and fix all faults, even the trivial ones, and see if that works - or ask in some HTML coding forum.