Testing for IE6 in OSX?
I want a Mac but this is one of the hurdles getting in the way. I want a way to easily test IE6 without restarting for boot camp, without buying expensive software like VMware or Paralles, and won’t crash like ies4osx. If there was just an easy peice of software like IETester for OSX this would really help me with the leap of faith to OSX. Does anyone know anything new that is happening to resolve this issue? Seeing as 50% of web users still use IE for browsing the web (http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp) testing for them is essential. You think Apple would do something to bridge this gap so that people have one less stumbling block to make the big jump.
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EDIT: oops didn’t see that ies4osx was crashing on you
I use VirtualBox since it is free and open source. This is what XP looks like running at the same time as OS X.
I’ve been using it for a year and haven’t had any crashes really, does it freeze up when you run it?
@btko I don’t use ies4osx but just reading their “Known Issues” is enough to make me not want to try it. How has it been for you?
ies4osx Known Issues? How have these effected you?
# Internet Explorer uses up to 100% CPU, which might turn on your vents
# Internet Explorer 7 might not work at all, it is really only for testing
# 1 of 4 tries downloads a corrupt “ActiveX MFC42” (maybe defective mirror?)
wow strange – I did download my copy over a year ago.. so maybe things have changed with the mirror. Also I haven’t tried using it for IE 7 just IE 6 since it’s the worst web browser in the world. At least IE7 is an improvement on the worst.
Sucks that it’s not working for you.. :\ sorry for the bad advice
We use ies4osx, and it’s worked great. Really wonderful for testing. Never had a problem.
VMWare and Parallels are each $80, and can often be found cheaper through various specials or packages. It’s a perfectly reasonable price, and I don’t think qualifies as “expensive software.” If you’re in the web business and need to test in IE, make a few investments. You should make the cost of this software back on your first contract. Of course, you also need a Windows license, but those can be had for pretty cheap, too. In my long experience in this field, it’s not worth the hassle to save a couple bucks.
I use Parallels for IE6 testing, and it works great without restarting, but after reading this thread I’m definitely going to try ies4osx!
Thanks guys
Hey Dangdang, when you were doing the install were you trying to install IE7? That has issues… IE6 should be fine though.
I don’t own a Mac yet. I am doing this research before I buy the Mac so that I am sure I won’t end up regretting it. Also, IE7 also behaves differently then Safari & Firefox so it will become more and more important for testing too as more people migrate from IE6 to IE7.
ies4osx crashes sometimes for me. the solution is to reboot my computer and start it without any other apps running. kinda weird, but it works.
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