Filed under: OS, Open Source
Run IE 6 on your Intel Mac without Windows
A forum member of Ars Technica has managed to get a working, albeit buggy, version of Internet Explorer 6 to run under OS X via WINE. Using a script designed to easily install IE 6 on a Linux machine alongside a version of WINE designed for OS X he managed to get the ubiquitous web browser to run. We don't need to tell you how happy web developers will be to find that they can test their sites on the Mac without booting into Windows, or even owning a copy of Windows for that matter.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
andy said 2:03PM on 6-06-2006
Here we go - just the beginning
Reply
Jason said 2:04PM on 6-06-2006
why would you ever want IE on any computer, much less a Mac?
Reply
Jason said 2:06PM on 6-06-2006
thats pretty cool that he got it to work though, and it's good for web designers. But still, I hate IE.
Reply
timothy said 2:07PM on 6-06-2006
aren't all versions of IE buggy?
Reply
spudicus said 2:21PM on 6-06-2006
That is promising. It would be so cool to be able to run any windows binary from within OSX. It sounds like it is still in the kludge stage though (e.g. font problems, runs in X11). I'll probably try it just to see if I can get it to work but it seems to me that parallels is still a better solution, especially if the goal is to be able to run a fully functional version of IE6 for the purposes of testing web design. Can't beat the price though. :P
Reply
jason mark said 2:22PM on 6-06-2006
As a web developer I have to say that anything less than a version of IE6 that runs EXACTLY the same as on Windows really isn't much use, is it?
The whole problem is IE has bad support for many standards, and so you have too code around them. If you have a version of the browser that shows bugs that aren't really there it makes your life a lot harder. If you have a version of the browser that "fixes" some bugs for you, then you might as well not test.
Reply
Craig said 2:23PM on 6-06-2006
Next up, IE 7...
Reply
Ralph said 2:24PM on 6-06-2006
"Why make a Mac version; they can just boot into Windows and run it."
Yup, just the beginning.
Reply
Don Wilson said 2:47PM on 6-06-2006
Typical mac responses "here we go" .. "just the beginning".
Reply
andy said 2:54PM on 6-06-2006
typical nothing better to say on the subject responce...
" Typical mac responses "here we go" .. "just the beginning"."
Reply
Randy Harris said 2:56PM on 6-06-2006
I think this is great, there are a couple of sites I frequent which only display properly on IE for Windows, now I'll be able to view those sites from IE6 straight from OS X!
Sure I'd prefer that the sites displayed correctly in all sites, but this is a great work around which allows you to see them properly from a Mac.
Randy
Reply
Nick Schoeneberger said 3:42PM on 6-06-2006
The thing you want to watch for is the CrossOver Office release for Mac OS X. I used to use this product under linux before I got my Mac and it worked beautifully for what I used it for. It is a commercial product based on WINE with LOTS of value added for ease of use. And the fact that it has such great application support for linux means it likely will retain that on OS X. It benefits from advances in WINE but has added some of its own as well. I used to run IE6 on linux with no trouble at all and the Windows version of Quicktime worked very nicely under CrossOver as well. They are promising a shipping version in 2006 per this release: http://www.codeweavers.com/about/general/press/?id=20050809
"In addition, due to Apple Computer's recent announcement that it will be moving to Intel x86 chips for its Macintosh PC products next year, CodeWeavers looks forward to making CrossOver Office available for Windows-to-Mac application porting in 2006."
Reply
Mark Scrimshire said 4:02PM on 6-06-2006
Regarding comment 8 from Ralph, - Why make a Mac version; they can just boot into Windows and run it.
Because as a developer the constant rebooting will make the Mac seem even more like a Windows machine than ever. The loss of productivity as a result of having to shut down your development environment and loss of the ability to review code will testing becomes an enormous productivity hit.
Parallels Workstation and its ability to run a virtual windows session under Mac OS X is a far more efficient way to go.
Reply
Dustin said 4:37PM on 6-06-2006
who the frick cares? Who uses IE on a mac for god sake?
Reply
Ryan Maxwell said 6:42PM on 6-06-2006
It's not about WANTING to use IE on a Mac, its that we HAVE to test our webpages we make in IE, as its rendering engine does not conform to proper HTML and CSS standards, so you end up finding that your pages that looked fine in firefox, camino, and safari look messed up in IE.
The main reason i would want to run parallels is a way to quickly test my pages in IE.
Reply
Thomas said 6:42PM on 6-06-2006
I'll wait for some sort of installer. :)
Reply
smart mac said 2:25PM on 7-31-2006
Nice script. I'll try it very soon. I can check how my site looks in IE.
Will come a new version for the next IE 7 ?
Reply
Rutger said 8:52PM on 8-22-2006
For now, a seperate windows laptop is fine, combined with my iMac G5. But hen I get an intel mac (most likely early next year) I'll definitely go for the wintel-app-on-osx solution. I only need IE6/7 to see what the nitwitz in the world see :)
Reply
James Barbour said 4:55AM on 8-23-2006
I can see why this might be helpful to developers in the current environment. But surely the long-term goal must be to persuade Microsoft to bring IE in line with accepted standards? Chicken and egg, I know, but given the increase in Firefox's popularity, this must at least be a possibility.
Reply