Internet Explorer 7 for Mac? Not likely.

Posted on February 16, 2005 by Ian Betteridge

Link: Digital Web Magazine – News – Misinformation about the IE7 announcement.

As we understand it there won’t be any version available for the Mac, much less for other platforms other than XP with service pack 2 (“Microsoft Internet Explorer for Windows XP Service Pack 2 customers”).

No real surprise, given the success of Safari on the Mac (and the sort-of success of Firefox too). Microsoft has nothing to gain from working on a new version of IE for Mac.

UPDATE: Commenter Charles (see below) suggests using Darwine to run IE6 on the Mac.

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  • http://moritzpetersen.de Moritz Petersen

    There isn’t even IE 6 for Mac, why should they develop IE 7?

  • http://technovia.typepad.com Ian Betteridge

    There’s lots of potential reasons that Microsoft might choose to pick up IE development on the Mac – but the main one is simply to continue the policy of “embrace and extend” when it comes to web standards. Without controlling the Mac browsing experience, they can’t do that.

  • Richard

    I think microsoft is very smart by not doing a upgrade IE 7 for mac, because if mac user’s want the latest they will have to pay for the license to operate windows software on there mac before IE 7 will function! way to go microsoft!

  • Andrew O

    IE 7 “experience?” What a joke! I have a mac and I hate using IE 5 on here or even on a PC! Camino, Firefox, Safari, I would rather use any of those than Microsoft’s crap.

  • Fry

    It also makes it so web designers must develop on Windows to test for IE.

  • RICKY

    I AM USING MAC

    AND NEVER IN MY LIFE I WILL USE INTERNET EXPLORER ON MY MAC

    THE BEST WEB BROWNSER ITS MOZZILA

    AND ITS FREE

    PAY FOR SHIT IE FROM MICROSOFT NEVER

    TY GOD WINDOWS VISTA ITS CRACKED

    BYE BYE WINDOWS

    PLEASE BILL GATES GET A JOB

    TY TO ALL THE HAKERS WORKING IN ALL THIS TIME

    A BIG THANK YOU FOR ALL THE HACKERS

  • Anthony

    Say.. is your Apple green? – Have you dear Ricky contributed to a better environment lately? http://www.greenmyapple.org

    Should be very interesting for you before pucking on MS. Both OS/ Companies have their weaknesses. I agree Steve Balmer is hardly a like-able lad but Bill Gates donates more money to charity then your Steve Jobs.

    Leave the personal feelings off if you will. Both companies and their respective CEO’s have to work on their social skills and their EQ. Perhaps Balmer and Jobs more so than Bill. And yes MS has to look more at companies like McIntosh… not Apple for inspiration. Quality first at all times. Do what your company does best. Currently Apple is spreading toxic waste by means of a inferior player/recorder like iPod – I am a audiophile and would never touch it as a serious recording/personal player.

    So.. talking about shit from MS take a look at the shit from the i..range. iTunes is a g reat store, wish only that the quality of the songs would be a bit better 192kbps instead of the 128 offered right now.

    Kind regards from The Netherlands

  • http://RATEMYPOO.COM HACKER SUPREME

    I HATE PC WINDOW ETC ETC

    I HATE EM ALL!!!!!

  • Webterractive

    I also use a Mac and have a Windows Laptop because as much as I don’t like using IE it is essential in losts of business.

  • http://www.hsbsg-design.co.uk Ashley Sheridan

    It is unfortunate that they do not plan to further develop IE for the Mac, as it seems it is the only OS left out. I use various flavours of Linux for web development, and test using IEs4Linux when I need to. Maybe this is the way forward for the Mac OS?

  • Loren John

    I think that it is unfortunate that MS decided to neglect the other people on it’s browser. I really don’t like using IE, but it is essential to the business that I am in. When a person develops something for the web, that person should be able to see thier content in all updated browsers. The topic that I see most often is that of the dollar.

  • http://profile.typekey.com/ianbetteridge/ Ian Betteridge

    By far the best way to use IE on the Mac these days (two years after I wrote this post!) is to use Parallels or similar virtualisation software, and just run Windows as well as Mac.

  • http://www.greyhat.org Richard Ward

    I work for a company that develops e-business solutions for small-to-medium-sized companies and I think between Firefox and Safari (and the recent decline of Internet Explorer users), Apple has all their bases covered. Let’s not forget Opera exists on Mac, too…

  • Sarah

    I just want this shit to work. Always. That’s why I went Mac and won’t go back. If Microsoft wants to keep IE away from Mac, then so be it – just one more of their products I won’t be wasting my money on.

  • http://www.krissy.nu Krissy

    I was searching for “IE for Mac” when I came across this article. While I agree that there are much better browsers out there (free of charge, and work on multiple operating systems)…I have to say that with the line of work I’m in (Web Design) it’s important to HAVE an IE browser to work off of. Unfortunately with the change in HTML/CSS over the past few years IE5 just doesn’t cut it.

    Considering Apple was nice enough to make a Safari version for Windows, you’d think Microsoft could at least return the favor!

  • Chris

    Well, i work on a mac at work and have a pc at home. Firefox is/was far better than safari, but with the last few months(since the last update) Firefox has been as unstable as anything i have ever used. I actually was considering regressing back to internet exploder until i discovered this article. Now i have no idea what to do for my mac.

    Mac OS X – version 10.4.11

    Processor: 2 x 2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon

    Memory: 4GB 667 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM

  • http://profile.typekey.com/ianbetteridge/ Ian Betteridge

    Hi Chris.

    One thing to try is a complete, fresh install of Firefox. Delete the application, plus anything in /Library/Application Support which refers to either “Firefox” or “Mozilla” (be careful what you’re deleting if you also use Thunderbird, though). That turned Firefox from a pig to usable for me.

    Also, try Safari 3 – it’s really rather nice.

  • Nick

    Hi all

    I have just transfered to a mac….at last. and have the problem that a system that I use called promap requires IE 5.5 and higher to work.

    What would be the easiest way around this.

    Have tried to see if firefox is compatable but it s not,

    Thanks in advance

  • http://www.incubatetheegg.com Pablo85

    Microsoft have a responsibility to offer interoperability. You could be forgiven for thinking that they have attempted to scew advances in the web for its own benefit. They have finally realised that they are shooting themselves in the foot with ‘browser targetting’ and you can bet your bottom dollar that IE8 will be Mac compatible (at least if this article is anything to go by http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/03/04/microsoft-backflips-on-browser-version-targeting/). I still havnt decided if IE7 was simply an exercise in arrogance or just pure laziness.

  • Charles

    You an always use darwine to run ie6 on a mac. http://www.kronenberg.org/ies4osx/

  • Ver

    IE6 does not help a web designer. It needs to be IE7. But I do understand that IE7 emulation is in the works.

  • Emmanuel

    is anybody can assist me i just got a mac laptop 4 my future biz but i downloaded internet explorer 5.2 yet is not compartable with what am using it for i need a better IE 6 which can help me do my job plzzzzzzzz