Microsoft finally kill Mac/IE

[Andy Dingley]

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/internetexplorer/internetexplorer.aspx?pid=internetexplorer

Microsoft will end support for Internet Explorer for Mac on December
31st, 2005, and will provide no further security or performance updates.

Additionally, as of January 31st, 2006, Internet Explorer for the Mac
will no longer be available for download from Mactopia. It is
recommended that Macintosh users migrate to more recent web browsing
technologies such as Apple's Safari.

 

[Craig Cockburn]

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/internetexplorer/internetexplorer.
aspx?pid=internetexplorer

Microsoft will end support for Internet Explorer for Mac on December
31st, 2005, and will provide no further security or performance updates.

Additionally, as of January 31st, 2006, Internet Explorer for the Mac
will no longer be available for download from Mactopia. It is
recommended that Macintosh users migrate to more recent web browsing
technologies such as Apple's Safari.

(or Firefox) - does anyone know the relative percentages for each in
terms of Mac usage?

thanks

 

[David Ross]

(or Firefox) - does anyone know the relative percentages for each in
terms of Mac usage?

Over a two-week period in September, I logged the user agents (UAs)
for 1,987 hits to my Web pages. Of those, 75 can be readily
identified as running on Macs. (Others might also be from Macs,
but I didn't do a thorough analysis of each UA.)

The specific browsers were:
Safari -- 55
Firefox -- 8
Camino (another Mozilla-based browser) -- 3
others -- 9

A more detailed discussion can be found at my
<http://www.rossde.com/viewing_site.html>. However, I do not break
out platforms there, only browsers.

--

David E. Ross
<http://www.rossde.com/>

I use Mozilla as my Web browser because I want a browser that
complies with Web standards. See <http://www.mozilla.org/>.

 

[Andy Dingley]

I recently did a site makeover for a pretty big gamer site. This
included spending around an extra month getting the damned thing
pixel-perfect on Mac/IE (and barring a few pixels, I pretty much
achieved it).

Visiting browsers were about 4% Mac platform, of which almost everything
was Safari. There was a measurable but tiny traffic of non-Safari
browsers. The only Mac/IE I saw though was from our own test machines.

IMHO, people who don't use Macs (i.e. my boss) use Mac/IE because it's
what they're used to and are expecting to find. People who do use Macs
have long moved from IE to Safari.

 

[Dan]

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/internetexplorer/internetexplorer.aspx?pid=internetexplorer

Microsoft will end support for Internet Explorer for Mac on December
31st, 2005, and will provide no further security or performance updates.

Additionally, as of January 31st, 2006, Internet Explorer for the Mac
will no longer be available for download from Mactopia. It is
recommended that Macintosh users migrate to more recent web browsing
technologies such as Apple's Safari.

I never thought I'd see the day when M$ was recommending that people
upgrade to non-M$ browsers... For once, here's a Microsoft
announcement that should be well-publicized by supporters of alternate
browsers.

 

[Alan J. Flavell]

A more detailed discussion can be found at my
<http://www.rossde.com/viewing_site.html>. However, I do not break
out platforms there, only browsers.

What's that mean? Mac MSIE is a completely different browser than
Win MSIE. Lumping them together would make the results even more
bogus than usual.

 

[dorayme]

IMHO, people who don't use Macs (i.e. my boss) use Mac/IE because it's
what they're used to and are expecting to find. People who do use Macs
have long moved from IE to Safari.

Even those on OS 9 are likely to have moved to Mozilla or iCab,
both rather better on the whole. I was surprised to hear about
support being stopped for IE Mac soon, I thought it had been for
a while. What have they ever done for the last year or two I
wonder?

 

[David Ross]

What's that mean? Mac MSIE is a completely different browser than
Win MSIE. Lumping them together would make the results even more
bogus than usual.

My purpose was to catagorize browsers by the companies that develop
them. If you look at my page, you will see this.

Followup set to <comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html>.

--

David E. Ross
<http://www.rossde.com/>

I use Mozilla as my Web browser because I want a browser that
complies with Web standards. See <http://www.mozilla.org/>.

 

[Neredbojias]

With neither quill nor qualm, Dan quothed:

I never thought I'd see the day when M$ was recommending that people
upgrade to non-M$ browsers... For once, here's a Microsoft
announcement that should be well-publicized by supporters of alternate
browsers.

You have to remember that IE isn't a browser. It's a browser-like
something that works something like a browser.

 

[Alan J. Flavell]

On Wed, 21 Dec 2005, Neredbojias wrote:

(snip stuff about MacIE...)

You have to remember that IE isn't a browser.

And *you* need to remember that MacIE is not WinIE.

It's a browser-like something that works something like a browser.

I would accept that statement about WinIE. And probably add a free
extra portion of raspberries.

Although I don't happen to use Macs, I'm aware that when it was
introduced and being supported, MacIE was a good, standards-oriented,
CSS-ish-supporting browser for the Mac, which stood up well against
the then-current opposition on any platform.

Time has moved on, and MacIE has not; so, nowadays it's quite a
disappointment as measured against other *current* browsers. But
tossing it casually into the same pot as the browser-like operating
system component for Windows would be a big mistake, and would tend to
discredit anything else which the contributor was trying to say.

cheers

 

[JDS]

Although I don't happen to use Macs, I'm aware that when it was
introduced and being supported, MacIE was a good, standards-oriented,
CSS-ish-supporting browser for the Mac, which stood up well against
the then-current opposition on any platform.

But the same could have been said of WinIE 5. IMO, Netscape died not
because of (well, not *just* because of) underhanded, sneaky, monopolistic
practices of Microsoft[1]. Netscape died because it sucked as
compared to MSIE 5. Really, compare the browsing experience of MSIE5 to
NS4. Hello? Can you say Netsuck?

But, of course, Microsoft being what it is, "innovation" only occurs when
there is a market to monopolize, and MSIE stagnated and langoured in its
market dominance, and by today's standards, MSIE is the "lame duck" so to
speak. (Or does "lame duck" have to much of a political connotation to
use there? But I digress).

In any case, the degree of "innovation" from MSIE5 -> 5.5 -> 6 has been
miniscule in comparison to what other browsers have been doing in that
time frame. And we're talking, like, 5-6 years here. Hard to believe
that MSIE 5 was released in 1999. And IE 6 in 2001. 4+ years ago for
the last major update from Microsoft?? Ugh! But I digress again.

happy whatever-o-days to all.




[1] Need an example? See this 9 year old news.com.com story:
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-240546.html

 

[Alan J. Flavell]

But the same could have been said of WinIE 5.

No. Its violation of several mandatory requirements of the
interworking specifications have been on record for years.

IMO, Netscape died not because of (well, not *just* because of)
underhanded, sneaky, monopolistic practices of Microsoft[1].
Netscape died because it sucked as compared to MSIE 5. Really,
compare the browsing experience of MSIE5 to NS4. Hello? Can you say
Netsuck?

I*'m not sure what you're hoping to achieve by this forceful
obfuscation of the fact that MacIE is a completely different product
from WinIE, and the lead developer for MacIE put considerable emphasis
on conforming to published specifications, instead of riding roughshod
over them in the way that WinIE has repeatedly been exposed for doing.

ho hum

 

[Andy Dingley]

the lead developer for MacIE put considerable emphasis
on conforming to published specifications, instead of riding roughshod
over them in the way that WinIE has repeatedly been exposed for doing.

So why does Mac/IE suck so badly then?

Maybe the specification for mac/IE was to support standards. This would
be laudable. However the reality is that its basic parser is so broken
that it collapses entirely under trivial syntactic errors, and even
several valid constructs that are just trivially different from the
minimal case. This makes it a poor browser for practical use on the web.
I suspect that the implementation and _particularly_ the test case
design for it were distinctly poor in comparison to these lofty design
goals.

Maybe Mac/IE was intended to be wonderful, but the simple fact is that
it isn't. Nor have M$oft shown any interest in fixing minor but damaging
bugs over several years.

 

[Alan J. Flavell]

I suspect that the implementation and _particularly_ the test case
design for it were distinctly poor in comparison to these lofty design
goals.

You could be right.

Maybe Mac/IE was intended to be wonderful, but the simple fact is that
it isn't. Nor have M$oft shown any interest in fixing minor but damaging
bugs over several years.

I could not possibly comment on the suggestion from some quarters that
subsequent MacIE development was deliberately nobbled, despite the
good intentions of its lead developer, to avoid it looking much better
than its contemporary WinIE versions.

 

[dorayme]

So why does Mac/IE suck so badly then?

One thing can be a great improvement on another but still not be
better than some third thing. Your reasoning commits the fallacy
of Lingum Perfectio Comparisiona, a well know Italian fault of
reasoning.

It never sucked. I used it for years and it worked well enough.
It started super quick and there are other things besides
rendering web pages to consider in a browser that it was very
good at.

Maybe the specification for mac/IE was to support standards. This would
be laudable. However the reality is that its basic parser is so broken
that it collapses entirely under trivial syntactic errors, and even
several valid constructs that are just trivially different from the
minimal case. This makes it a poor browser for practical use on the web.

If you were really right, then users would have (had) very much
more trouble than they in fact had. Now, of course, the situation
is rather different with css becoming more prevalent.

What so many IE critics miss is the strength of its flexibilty.
It mostly did not throw a tantrum (like, say, Safari) when it
came across invalid mark up.

 

[Andy Dingley]

What so many IE critics miss is the strength of its flexibilty.
It mostly did not throw a tantrum (like, say, Safari) when it
came across invalid mark up.

Mac/IE leaves gaping holes in the page if the markup contains surplus
(but valid) whitespace. That's not flexibility, that's rubbish.

 

[dorayme]

Mac/IE leaves gaping holes in the page if the markup contains surplus
(but valid) whitespace. That's not flexibility, that's rubbish.

Trouble with whitespace in IE is a fact. You do not miss this.
But you appear to miss a lot else...

Have you, over a goodly period of time, actually used this
browser on a Mac? Got by on it? Or what, you see various faults
and it is rubbish... Dismissed! You would not like my car and you
would not see thgat actually it is a very good car to have for
some people....

 

[Leonard Blaisdell]

I could not possibly comment on the suggestion from some quarters that
subsequent MacIE development was deliberately nobbled, despite the
good intentions of its lead developer, to avoid it looking much better
than its contemporary WinIE versions.

Damn, where is the original CSS compatibility chart that showed MacIE5
by Eric Meyer? When it arrived, it was the *best* CSS compatible browser
available per that chart, and not by a little.
Found it, I think.
<http://www.ddj.com/webreview/style/css1/charts/mastergrid.shtml>
without the red, green and yellow table fields that made the fact
obvious originally. The browsers have moved on, but MacIE5 was once the
best, regardless of its heritage. And I say that without love for MS.
All in support of your previous assertions.

leo

 

[Henri Sivonen]

So why does Mac/IE suck so badly then?

When it was introduced it relatively didn't. It does now because the OS
X port was left on the "it compiles and runs" Carbonization level. Also,
the DOM features of other browsers have long since passed the abilities
of Mac IE 5.

 

[Neredbojias]

With neither quill nor qualm, Alan J. Flavell quothed:

On Wed, 21 Dec 2005, Neredbojias wrote:

(snip stuff about MacIE...)


And *you* need to remember that MacIE is not WinIE.


I would accept that statement about WinIE. And probably add a free
extra portion of raspberries.

Although I don't happen to use Macs, I'm aware that when it was
introduced and being supported, MacIE was a good, standards-oriented,
CSS-ish-supporting browser for the Mac, which stood up well against
the then-current opposition on any platform.

Time has moved on, and MacIE has not; so, nowadays it's quite a
disappointment as measured against other *current* browsers. But
tossing it casually into the same pot as the browser-like operating
system component for Windows would be a big mistake, and would tend to
discredit anything else which the contributor was trying to say.

Apparently MS had a different team working on the Mac IE. I can't be
all that rueful, though, since Mac as a computer is like Yugo as an
automobile, anyway.