Internet Explorer, as much as a lot of us despise it, has a considerable market share in the browser space. Some people even still use the defunct Internet Explorer 6 (which sucks) but even Internet Explorer 8 has its own kinks and intricacies to worry about.
And up until recently it’s been hard to test a design against them if you’re using a Mac (which many designers are).
The three most popular options for testing are:
- Run a Windows partition: Obviously this isn’t ideal as it requires a reboot every time you want to see how something looks on IE. And it costs money. And you have to support an operating system you probably don’t really support, hence your computer choice.
- Use a website like Browsershots: Just as troublesome as I’ve never found one of these to work properly for me. They always seem incredibly slow (as they’re taking pictures on servers and sending them to you) and buggy. Not fun.
- Have a Windows PC: This is even worse than option 1 for obvious reasons.
However, I just recently found out about a cool little program called WineBottler, and I’m going to show you how to use it to install Internet Explorer on Mac.
- Download WineBottler
-
Install Internet Explorer
It’s located under “Install Predefined Prefixes”. Choose the version you’d like and click silent install if you’d like. -
Run it
Yeah. That’s it.
Drag both Wine and WineBottler to your Applications folder.
Can you believe how simple that was? I couldn’t. The performance isn’t perfect but it’s very simple to install, and now you can run Internet Explorer on your Mac with just a click of a button.
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{ 30 comments… read them below or add one }
That’s a really cool trick! Just one question though; when you said to choose a version, could you only choose one? Or could you run IE6/7/8 all separately?
I never tried, but I can only imagine all separately. I’ll check it out later.
I just installed IE7 and 8 without problem. Haven’t tried to run them concurrently yet, but I can say that it is at least possible to install both.
It is really slow when you use WineBottler. I prefer to go with Parallel.
I never noticed it being too too slow. It isn’t perfect though, that’s for sure. I guess the question is if this is your only purpose for running Mac software, is the $80 for Parallels worth it?
I tried installing it a few months ago, and it never worked. Maybe I should try again. Maybe they’ve fixed it up since.
Cool! I’d love for this to work instead of having to maintain multiple VMWare instances for each different IE browser (I’m not a fan of the “consolidated” offerings that include all three IE versions in one app/install). But does anyone know if these are true, fully-functioning versions of IE? Are there limitations to what you can/can’t do?
Coincidentally I just stumbled upon this about a week ago, gave it a try and what do you know – it didn’t work. Sure Winebottler installed IE6 and IE7 without problems, but they ran so slow and crashed with the first or the second page load. I’m not quite sure if it’s because I have Leopard, or because of the unstableness of the application. Close but no cigar.
Tried it, but still not the best tool to fully test your websites I think. I work with VMWare Fusion (http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/) and that is for me the best solution. It take a while to install 3 images, for 3 (soon 4) images for every IE variant, but at the end, it’s really easy to use, runs fast, runs javascript.
I have been using virtualbox. Free virtualization software that is super reliable. I own a copy of XP, but don’t have 7 so I haven’t’ tried IE9 out. Has anyone got this running on Snow Leopard with IE9?
- IE6 won’t install
- IE8 has a broken interface and won’t connect
- IE7 kind of works but doesn’t seem to have a javascript engine
I’ll stick with Parallels and/or VirtualBox for now
Gotta love betas, I guess. ‘Cause IE6 installs for me and I use it daily. =/
I’ve tried it, it doesn’t work. It just sits there and never loads a page.
Hi thx for the tipp that’s exactly what i’m looking for.
But the reason i write is…i have a problem..
I tried installing IE7, the first time i got an error during the installation, when i tried again
it worked.
I now have Microsoft IE7 in my Application folder, but when i run it, i just get a white screen
someone an idea what might be wrong ?
thx
If you click the stop icon (the X) then type a URL in the address bar it should work.
However don’t go to any SSL encrypted websites. They don’t work.
I tried installing IE6 and it errors every time when installing flash. it complaines about a file mismatch.
I have the “white screen” issue as well – Yes, there is a red “x”-close button, but absolutely nothing other than the header line [which reads "Wine Internet Explorer"]. No space for entry of a url.. .. I installed wine and winebottler, X11 is active and in my doc, the Internet Explorer icon is on the dock as well — nothing but white!
Are there other winetools that need to be installed in addition to the Internet7 from the Predefined Prefixes?
Would love to convert 100% to a MAC, but there are business programs I need that only run in IE.. Thoughts? Thanks in advance,
Anyone know if it supports the installation of ActiveX applications?
Hi, I’ve just installed ie on my mac but it won’t connect to the internet. I should be able to change the settings under tools but it’s not clickable. Any tips? Thanks!
IE 6 didnt work, IE didnt work. IE 7 installed and working fine. If you cant connect with any websites just open tools>connection> automatically choose setting (or something similar). The only problem occurred was not able to open a local website from mac which was the reason to install it in the first place.
Useless on my MBP with OS X 10.6.5
IE6 won’t install and IE7 doesn’t run any JavaScript even though it’s enabled. Too bad!
Running Internet Explorer on your Mac will soon be possible without installing it locally. ie4mac is dedicated to bringing you IE 6, 7, 8 and 9 (latest beta release from Microsoft). At the moment one can still sign up to be invited for the closed beta. Taking part is free, of course, and all participants can use all versions of Internet Explorer, including developer tools, right on their Macs. See http://ie4mac.com/
Cheers,
Timon (ie4mac team)
cool story and thanks for the spam. nobody on here is looking for that sort of solution (remote) or they wouldn’t have landed on this article.
also i signed up for your “closed” beta a while back and never heard word one about it. vaporware IMO.
do you still have to have a windows O/S installed to use this? I downloaded this in Feb and it never worked for me. I’ll try again. Thanks!
Im using 10.6.7 IE isnt working for me. 6 wont install at all, 7 and 8 install but dont work properly. Any hints?
This isn’t working for me. However, I have upgraded to Lion, so this may be why.
I am running Lion as well and have gotten IE8 to load without any issue besides some small javaScript glitches once viewing a page. Anyone know of a (preferably free) tool to view IE9 on mac>
IE*8 works fine on Snow leopard; bit slow but free so can’t complain. Not sure if quicker to fire up Parallels and use IE8 that way.
I installed Wine and WineBottler and then followed the steps to install IE7. It said everything installed correctly, but when I tried to go to a site in IE, it just sits there on a blank white page. I’m on 10.7.2.
This doesn’t work.
IE6 wont install. IE8 doesn’t work. IE7 works to a point, but doesn’t support javascript.
Little more than a curiosity.
I’ve just tried this on Lion. IE8 installs ok, but it fails to connect. It’s a shame, this would have been amazing if it worked. Back to Virtual box then