Running IE on your Mac

There's a new method of running IE (Internet Explorer) on your Mac. Now you may ask yourself, what do I need IE on a Mac? It's only really useful for visiting those annoying web sites which refuse to display properly in Safari or Firefox for the Mac. Yes, you can also download a Firefox add-on called User Agent Switcher to lie about your browser user agent, but that won't emulate all the quirks associated with IE so some web pages may still not display properly.

The software to accomplish this magic is called ie4osx. Basically it runs the IE version of your choosing under Darwine (Darwin Windows Emulator) under X11 (a traditional Unix style graphical user interface environment). You need to install X11 (available from your OS X install disks or Apple's web site) and Darwine prior to installing ie4osx.

If you find yourself encountering the occasional web site which refuses to display correctly (or at all) under a Mac browser, this software may be useful for you. It runs pretty well though it's a bit quirky. I found myself having to double or triple click on links occasionally. I also had trouble getting back to the search term form on Google's search page. Still, these quirks are a small price to pay to be able to finally view web sites that were otherwise inaccessible or garbled.