MSIE 5.2 for Mac OS X Released 94
Jarrett writes "MSIE 5.2 now supports Quartz text smoothing and a slew of other reliability/security [hehe] improvements on Mac OS X. Its performance is noticably better, it seems to end the spinning beach ball problems, and is stable. It's available on Microsoft's Mactopia site" Posted With Mozilla(tm) on Mac OS X.
Talk about instant gratification... (Score:1)
Re:Talk about instant gratification... (Score:2)
I was complaining [slashdot.org] about this crappy update hours before it was posted on slashdot!
(complaining because the drag-and-drop install method seems to have gone out of style, and because it sets your homepage to msn, and because i'm real bitter at microsoft for other recent mac fuckups.)
I still havn't installed it though, but if it fixes the spinning-beachball problem I may just break down and go for it.
Re:Talk about instant gratification... (Score:2)
The anti-aliasing has gotten worse rather than better. Fonts now look fuzzier than they did with 5.1
Yes, it does set MSN as the home page, but changing the home page is an easy thing to do.
I think I will try it out for a couple weeks before I pass judgement.
Re:Meanwhile, Mozilla 1.0 is out, and looks great (Score:1)
IE is a great browser, Mozilla is a great browser. Let people choose the browser they prefer.
Re:Meanwhile, Mozilla 1.0 is out, and looks great (Score:1)
You apparently did not catch the sarcasm. I believe he was suggesting that Macintoshes as a proprietary system that caters to people who like to spend money when they don't have to.
Re:Meanwhile, Mozilla 1.0 is out, and looks great (Score:1)
:)
Re:Meanwhile, Mozilla 1.0 is out, and looks great (Score:4, Interesting)
I use MS Office vX on my TiBook for work and school related things (no other program even approaches Excel in maturity and performance for my work and school applications). Anyways, after a searching the internet in vane for an OSX calendar/scheduling program, I came up empty handed. I was tempted by the dark side (MS) and installed Entourage off of my Office CD. It didn't work, giving me a funny error message and then crashing every time I tried to start it.
After checking online, searching for this error message for ~10 minutes, I decided to give the MS Customer support line a call. I didn't have to stay on hold for more than 10 seconds throughout the entire call. After a few voicemail selections, I was dumped to one support guy who, after asking a few questions, referred me to a Mac support guy. The Mac support guy stepped through a few troubleshooting hoops with me, figured out what the problem was and fixed it.
The entire phone call took less than 10 minutes and I was entouraging away. The tech support even told me how to use entourage as a calendar program and *not* an email program.
The point is, MS is a large company. They might break a few antitrust laws and stifle a little innovation here and there, but don't forget that this is capitalism. The consumer rules! Take advantage of what MS does offer. In my case it's good phone support and reasonable software. In the case related to this story, it's IE for Mac. Use IE for the Mac. Use Mozilla for the Mac. Make an educated decision about which is better. Use one or the other, both or neither. The educated consumer is the best thing to be in a capitalistic society.
You are already using a Mac, so you aren't forced to use one thing over another. MS will work hard making good apps for the Apple if they will be rewarded by consumers buying/using them.
Re:Meanwhile, Mozilla 1.0 is out, and looks great (Score:1)
Re:Meanwhile, Mozilla 1.0 is out, and looks great (Score:2)
Gnumeric?
"Anyways, after a searching the internet in vane for an OSX calendar/scheduling program, I came up empty handed."
Not sure what your needs are, but Emacs has a nice calendar application. Also GNOME has a PIM application.
Re:Meanwhile, Mozilla 1.0 is out, and looks great (Score:2)
I use very complicated spreadsheet financial modeling programs at work, and I need to be able to read complex spreadsheets. For school, my professors need to be able to test my spreadsheet models.
Don't worry, though. I use Octave and Perl/Python whenever I can get away with it in school and in work. Recently, however, I am being forced to use MS .Net to develop a web application at work. ;-(
I'm going to approach it with an open mind and see if it is actually cool or not.
WRT emacs as a calendar program... Yeah right! (sarcasm). I didn't play umpteen thousand dollars for a Powerbook in order to use a program that clashes with aqua. I don't care if it's an aquafied emacs. I want something pretty!
Re:Meanwhile, Mozilla 1.0 is out, and looks great (Score:1)
Re:Meanwhile, Mozilla 1.0 is out, and looks great (Score:1)
It has excellent standard compliance. Great rendering speed. It might even sport quartz-rendering in 1.1. But looks isn't exactly what it has going for it. It sticks out like a sore thumb in a hand of aqua.
IE 5.2 codebase (Score:1)
Re:IE 5.2 codebase (Score:2)
The quartz rendering is nice, but I havn't noticed many other improvements.
Re:IE 5.2 codebase (Score:3, Interesting)
IE 5.2 still lags way behind Mozilla on rendering
No tabs. I hate opeing a new freakin' window for every link that catches my eye and Mozilla also renders tabs in the background instead of throwing up a half-complete page in a new window I may be only marginally interested in to begin with. Plus pop-up/under control... sooo nice.
Mozilla still doesn't work with bad javascript, more of a feature than a bug though... whereas IE will render about any version of half-assed code you want to throw at it as long as you intended it to be a drop down menu. Mozilla also doesn't support M$ inline frames or iframes or any of the other M$ created tags or CSS stuff they created because they didn't want to take the time to make ASP compliant.
well that's the rant I suppose.
Re:IE 5.2 codebase (Score:1)
hm. thats funny. the w3c html 4.1 standard includes iframes right here [w3.org] [w3c.org]
heaven forbid microsoft implement something useful or good.
Re:IE 5.2 codebase (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually this causes me all sorts of problems. I agree with you that the average browsing experience of mozilla blows MSIE out of the water, and I use it for all work-related tasks and such.
However, many important web portals I use to pay my bills (citibank, spring, verizon and 2 student loan companies) often use heavily crufted javascript. As a result, when I want to 'conduct business' online, I have to fire up IE. It just feels nasty. Any suggestions?
Re:IE 5.2 codebase (Score:1)
Buy a box of envelopes and some stamps?
That's what I do. Then again, I don't place a lot of stock in trusting my money to technology. Hell, I still won't get direct deposit for my paychecks.
Back on topic, I'm posting this with Mozilla. In the rare case that a site won't work with it, it will work with Omniweb.
IE is only on the home machine for my girlfriend, and on the work machine for the crappy web pages Filemaker Pro puts out.
--saint
Re:IE 5.2 codebase (Score:1)
"that it still pulls down a menu occasionally, rather then going to the site
Don't know about IE but.... (Score:1, Offtopic)
Update changes your homepage... (Score:1)
I've been looking at all the other browsers for OS X and they're getting really close. I really want to have one less M$ product on my beloved iBook. As good as the Mactopia group's software is, it's still Microsoft and I don't like the way they do business period. I look forward to getting rid of the last of it...
Re:Update changes your homepage... (Score:3, Informative)
Still have IE for the few sites that require it, but I can't remember the last time I used it.
Re:Update changes your homepage... (Score:1)
Ah well.. stuck with IE and OmniWeb
Re:Update changes your homepage... (Score:1)
Actually, this is something I've been meaning to do, I'm in the same boat as you, and yep, it's annoying
Re:Update changes your homepage... (Score:1)
IE and Microsoft bugs persist (Score:4, Insightful)
javascript:x=prompt("This Text Should Appear")
Explorer is getting about one bullet-item per-month upgrade, just to keep us hoping. Meanwhile several browsers are poised to overtake Explorer in standards-compliance and standards-implementation, and have already overtaken Explorer in features we like, like disabling ad banners and popups.
The fact that IE 5.2 sets the Home Page to MSN is a sure sign that MicroSoft can't let go of its old nasty little indulgences. As if switching the whole west coast to MSN didn't get our attention.
Re:IE and Microsoft bugs persist (Score:3, Interesting)
I _wish_ we were getting one bullet-item per-month upgrade. Hasn't even really been that good. I think we've been misled as to the size and resources of the Mac development team at MS. It looks like maybe they have one part-time programmer working on IE and a couple others maintaining Office X.
Given the bounds that MSN Messenger 3.0 recently made, they must have ten or twenty programmers working on that
Re:IE and Microsoft bugs persist (Score:2, Interesting)
Fire.app gets around this by logging out on sleep and logging back in on an awaken action. It's hard to believe MS hasn't dealt with this yet.
Bill
Re:IE and Microsoft bugs persist (Score:1)
Sure, it`s a little nasty and everything, but is it really a problem? I mean, Microsoft delivers currently the best allround browser for the Mac, and it`s free.
Setting msn.com as the default homepage is something I can live with as long as IE is still free and being updated, and it`s very easy to change (even for Mac-people :p ).
Re:IE and Microsoft bugs persist (Score:1)
Since none of that is happening, IE is the underdog in everything except marketshare.
Re:IE and Microsoft bugs persist (Score:1)
As a web developer, I can say with authority that sites restricting to IE only (or for heaven's sake, NS4+IE) are doing so out of sheer laziness or lack of skill. With the company I work for, cross-browser/platform compatibility is not an option, the client pays for it and gets it regardless of the size of the project. We try very hard not to release pages of any kind that are not good 'Netizens.
Ah, well
Re:IE and Microsoft bugs persist (Score:1)
However, what is more important is that most sites (which I'm sorry to say are made for IE for Windows in mind) are better handled in IE for Mac.
Another thing I don't like with Mozilla is that it doesn't support the Windows Media Plugin. Yeah, I know it sucks, but I stumble across Windows Media all the time, and it's nice to have the option to see it.
Other than that, I don't like how slow Mozilla is to start up, and I certainly don't like how it's trying to be everything, in addition to a web browser (Mail, News etc.). Why can't they just concentrate on making the best possible browser - and only that(!) - instead?
Anyway, I really hope Mozilla will pick up soon, and Chimera really shows some promise. I'll keep downloading new versions along the way, and when I find anything better than IE I'll change on a heart-beat!
Re:IE and Microsoft bugs persist (Score:1)
WMP plugin isn't something I use, so YMMV. If you don't like the startup time try 1.1a it got alot faster once they stoped working on 'other things'.
All of the features I listed in the other are advantages.
You can change the UI to have pink flamingos and roses and rolex watches if you so wish, it's what skins are for. It's silly to complain about a skinable application looking odd.
I have not seen mozilla crash since (on any platform/os) 0.9.9, if you do, are you using a feedback enabled build? Are you sending the feedback? Thats the only way your specific problem can be fixed.
In the end, I urge you to give 1.1a a try, I can hardly stand to use IE anymore after using Mozilla as my primary browser for several months. The interface for IE is just too clunky, and I can reliably cause it to crash with a little bit of creative JS scripting (which happens to be used on ezboard.com
You're joking, surely? (Score:2)
best alternative. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:best alternative - not really... (Score:1)
how can you stand it? it has netscape 4.x like standards support. any self respecting web surfer should stay from omni-web.
more info here: http://www.webstandards.org/act/campaign/buc/ [webstandards.org]
Re:best alternative. (Score:1, Informative)
(the joke is on the end user, as a web developer who uses CSS for everything, I just sit back and laugh. We've come to a time when 90% of users have CSS-supporting browsers; if your going to use something like omniweb you may as well just pull out an old copy of Netscape 3 or something. How do you sleep at night? More importantly, how do you browse the web during the day??!!)
Tried it for 10 minutes. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Tried it for 10 minutes. (Score:1)
Shameless Plug Time! (Score:2, Offtopic)
Other stuff (Score:2)
Not even worth mentioning (Score:1)
Anyway, I expect IE 6.0 to be out pretty soon now, as reported by thinksecret.com. Maybe MWNY? We need faster rendering, up to par with IE for Windows, and better certificate handling.
Other than that, IE is still the only real all-round browser alternative for the Mac!
Won't Install (Score:3, Funny)
So, it won't be installed for some time.
Maybe Microsoft is just jealous, wants to bring everyone else down to its OS level.
MICROSOFT SUCKS (Score:2)
MICROSOFT STILL SUCKS (Score:2)
Is there no end to the madness?
Re:MICROSOFT SUCKS (Score:4, Informative)
Edit the file Library/Preferences/com.apple.internetconfig.plis
Look for the key: IEAsDefaultNoBotherPrefKey, and delete the entire key segment. Save it (keep a backup in case). Change the default browser in Internet in System Prefs and then launch IE. When it asks if you want IE to be your default browser, hit no.
Now, why MS had to put this in the internet config plist is beyond reason. A hint to MS: We don't want you junk in the system. It is OK if it is bundled and easily separated, but we want the option to be able to get rid of it all. If it were in the MS Prefs, I would have just deleted those and gone on with my life, but now, I may just delete IE instead and never have to worry about this again.
Re:MICROSOFT SUCKS (Score:1)
mod parent up plz (Score:2)
really great find! i had been looking into thwarting this evil behaviour for a while now. thanks man
Re:MICROSOFT SUCKS (Score:1)
- Go to System Perferences
- Select Internet
- Click the Web tab
- In the Default Web Browser drop down, choose Select
- Browse to Mozilla or Chimera Navigator and enjoy!
Re:MICROSOFT SUCKS (Score:1)
You're surprised? (Score:2)
Re:Won't Install (Score:2, Interesting)
I hate installers that do this. I have had many installers that install kernel extension that say the require a reboot. Well, I force quit them, su, find their extensions, and kextload. Never had any problems and the MP3 player was never interrupted in the process.
Why on Earth do you have to quit my Apps MS? There is NEVER a good reason for it. No other browser requires anything like this. Besides, I hate the idea of authenticating something from MS. I guess that MS wants to loose the browser war on OS X. They sure seem to be acting like it.
Re:Won't Install (Score:2)
Refer to this comment [slashdot.org]. Microsoft shouldn't take the blame for this. It's MindVision's fault. They built the installer-builder that Microsoft (and lots and lots of others) used.
Re:Won't Install (Score:2)
Re:Won't Install (Score:2)
I agree with you that application installers are pretty much obsolete for OS X, and that if you need one you should use Apple's installer, but in all fairness VISE is the most common installer-maker for Mac OS. It's not like Microsoft went out of their way to find a lousy one, or wrote their own just to be stubborn.
Re:Won't Install (Score:1)
Well, lets look at web browsers.
OmniWeb - Mount this disk image and copy to your hard drive.
Mozilla - Same thing
Chimera - I believe it is the same (been a while since I played with it).
IE - Run this installer, Authenticate it, and quit all your apps (my case, averages around 17 including my MP3 player and FIRE where I would like to chat with people while it installs), install, and then reset the cookie prefs and default home page.
The verdict: Between the other browsers on my system, IE no longer has much of a place. I only need it now for those sorry excuses of web sites that can't be bothered to follow HTML standards. Sorry MS, but you are going to have to learn that if you want to keep the browser market on OS X, you are going to have to <gasp>compete.</gasp>
Re:Won't Install (Score:3, Informative)
Don't blame Microsoft for this. Blame MindVision. The installer is built with Installer VISE from MindVision, version 7.4.1, which I believe is a direct carbonization of their OS 9 installer-builder product. Back in OS 9 days, quitting all running programs to install software was a resonable, if not necessarily correct, thing to do, so that's why the installer does it.
"About Installer..." should tell you everything you want to know.
I'm as annoyed at this "feature" as anybody, but blame the right party for it.
Re:Won't Install (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Won't Install (Score:2, Funny)
IE/Mac IE/Win (Score:4, Insightful)
So don't go lumping IE/Mac in with IE/Win - they're completely different browsers which happen to share the same name.
A List Apart: Why IE/Mac Matters [alistapart.com]
Two Things (Score:1)
2) Did they actually publish a list of security fixes? I usually like to know what an update does before I install it...
Different Needs Met w/Different Browsers (Score:3, Interesting)
IE (which does have a different code base than its PC counterpart--remember that IE6 in Windows is an embedded component of the OS, unlike the Mac version) is the most compatible with most Internet pages, but also the most annoying. Go to the wrong page, and you're in pop-up hell. The new font smoothing makes it a little more palatable, however. You can't use anything but IE if you hit pages that are loaded with JavaScript, complex style sheets, or ActiveX controls. Java support appears generally OK--better than in the OS 9 versions, but still lacking somehow. This browser works on corporate pages where all others fail, and is the only one that handles Apple's WebObjects properly.
OmniWeb is my browser of general choice. The current 5 beta has matured well with standards compliance and compatibility, and allows pop-up control. It may still choke on pages obviously created only for Windows users in mind. It's font smoothing is the best of the lot. The beta isn't always stable for some pages, such as CNN.
Netscape 6 is used when neither IE or OmniWeb are working properly.
Re:Different Needs Met w/Different Browsers (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Different Needs Met w/Different Browsers (Score:1)
Re:Love Mozilla, but with email??? (Score:1)
I actually read the script a couple of weeks ago. I can't remember it exactly, but it was very simple. It was something like this:
on run
tell application "Netscape Communicator"
register protocol "CSOM" for protocol "mailto:"
end tell
end run
Re:Love Mozilla, but with email??? (Score:1)
Go to "~/Library/Mozilla/Profiles/username/some_mess.sl
user_pref("network.protocol-handler.external.mail
Then save your text file, quit and relaunch Mozilla and you'll find that Mozilla will now use your default mail client as set in System Preferences/Internet.
Works like a charm with Mail.app with Moz 1.0 and 1.1a in 10.1.5.
Re:Love Mozilla, but with email??? (Score:1)
user_pref("network.protocol-handler.external.ma
Not a good thing. (Score:1)
Not Impressed So Far... (Score:3, Interesting)
1) The installer requires you to quit all other apps. What is this, OS 9? Windows? Microsoft still doesn't get it. They give you the thing on a
2) It changes your homepage to msn.com. Nice touch. I'm *thrilled* by the first impression that this install is making so far... Makes you wonder what other prefs are being overwritten.
3) Within minutes of starting it up, I had the mother of all spinning beachball delays. It went on for over a minute. So much for being an improvement over the last crappy IE.
4) Text is now anti-aliased, as it has been with OmniWeb, et al. for what seems like years. Bogus.
Follow Up! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Follow Up! (Score:2)
This is from KB document 106905 [apple.com]
PNG support (Score:1)
Re:PNG support (Score:1)
MSIE supports PNG just fine.. as inline images. But if you go to a URL which is a PNG image, it won't load, and will try to offer to help you by opening some other app to do it.
And no, MSIE 5.2 doesn't fix this bug, or the other bug I experiance regularlly, where it doesn't put text in javascript popup windows.
Stupid IE.
*smacks*
Going back to 5.1 (Score:1)
Why isn't IE in Software Update? (Score:3, Interesting)
I didn't believe the rumors at first, and probably still don't, but this is a weird break from tradition here.
why i use IE (Score:2)
-i hate microsoft. i'm forced to work with them at work, and for me the mac is the one true way to have an OS work.
- i love opensource. i push it whenever i can at work. and i'm in the position to do that.
- to me, microsoft = software mediocrity. and they've made bad software acceptable.
that being said, i use IE on the mac. on osX. i also fire up opera and mozilla at points, but i primarily use IE.
why? well, its the features. i LOVE some of the things that mac IE has. things that arent even in Win-IE. things that arent in Mozilla. or Opera, or OmniWeb. or iCab.
- the autocomplete in the URL bar also completes based on title. if i have a bookmark, or a recent history webpage that had a title of "booyah" and was at "foobar.com" i could type in booyah or foobar and it would pop me to the right web page. thats convienience and quite the mac-like intuition i love.
- the scrapbook - totally cool. yeah, theres similar in moz now.
- page holder. i like it, but dont use it all that much. again, also avail in moz
- aquafied text. ok, IE5.2 finally uses the 10.1.5 updates carbon -> aqua hook. it looks great! for a few weeks i was running Silk, but to tell you the truth, i've tossed silk away now. IE5.2 builtin does it MUCH BETTER than silk did.
- it feels more mac like. less so than omniweb or icab, but more so than opera, or mozilla. it has the right feel for mac.
- IE 5.x xml rendering. i use xml a bunch at work, and the builtin xml rendering is nice. why the heck cant someone incorporate this into moz?!?!?
i HATE how ie spins around for a while on silly javascript. that pisses me off. and hwo about a setting where popups / popunders are disabled?
that off my chest, i hope that soon the aqua mozilla adds these things i like. or if i could get tabs in IE. either way.