Internet Explorer Macintosh Edition

It includes ... a version of Microsoft Corp's Internet Explorer...

• Apple PR 2000.09.13: Apple Releases Mac OS X Public Beta and Unveils New iBook Line
• Yahoo prnews 2000.09.13: Apple Releases Mac OS X Public Beta (additional URLs: 1, 2, 3)

Mac OS X Public Beta includes many applications, including ... a beta version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, the most popular browser for the Mac®.

Finally, Jimmy Grewal, Steve Falkenburg, Tantek Celik, and Maf Vosburgh of Microsoft submitted Internet Explorer 5.5b1 as their hack, making it the first ever to come with an End User License Agreement (EULA). New in Internet Explorer 5.5b1 was the capability to drag any graphic (even animated GIFs) to the toolbar as a button, a Command-Shift-click shortcut for opening a link in a new window in the background (finally!), and type-to-select navigation that enables you to type the first few letters of a link to select it before pressing Return or Enter to follow the link. The Microsoft team also used their sleepless nights at MacHack to improve the Tasman rendering engine's performance, standards-compliance, and stability. I even ran across a page that crashed Internet Explorer 5.0 instantly but loaded perfectly in 5.5b1.

IE 5.5 adds the ability to open a new window that appears behind the current one by command-shift-clicking on the link.

A new Type-select navigation feature lets you use the keyboard to move among links on a Web page. As you begin typing, the browser places a focus ring around the text or graphic link that most closely matches your keystrokes. When you press Return, the browser goes to the selected link.

...the beta/preview build is said to contain several new, low-profile features and many bug fixes. However, sources noted that the feature set of the current preview build is not necessarily reflective of the final build of the product and is subject to change.

At Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference 2000 this week, Apple CEO Steve Jobs demonstrated Microsoft Internet Explorer Macintosh Edition for Mac OS X, calling it "a very, very good browser" and saying "we're thrilled by it." ...

Internet Explorer for Mac OS X is based on Internet Explorer 5 Macintosh Edition, Microsoft's current Macintosh browser, which already boasts over 1.5 million downloads since its availability in late March.

• Page 4 - What's New in Public Beta?

  From left to right: Desktop, Internet Explorer, Clock, System Preferences, Grab, the dividing line, a URL, a document, a minimized window, the Trash.

• Page 7 - Bundled Applications

  "Large" Applications

  Classic, Mail, Music Player, Internet Explorer, Sherlock, QuickTime Player

  ... The rudiments of Internet access are there: IE5 for web browsing, Apple's Mail application for POP/IMAP email, and Terminal for telnet and FTP. (Yes, that's right, the Terminal application is included in Public Beta.) With the exception of IE, these are just basic tools.

• Page 8 - Analysis

  IE5 is a good example: the classic version sometimes feels faster than the Carbon version bundled with Public Beta. Other apps slow down considerably, however.

Explorer beta is much, MUCH more stable, you can drag images off a website onto the toolbar as bookmarks. Although with DP4 I favored OmniWeb (which I installed already), Explorer is more feature-complete.

The beta comes with a usable e-mail program and a blazingly fast version of Microsoft Internet Explorer written for OS X.

Internet Explorer - That's right: everyone's favorite (or much maligned) browser of choice has made it into Mac OS X in a Carbonized version, which otherwise works just like the one built for Mac OS 9.

Light enough to carry the Internet with you. Sound farfetched? It isn't. Because you don't have to stay online to check out everything you find online, thanks to a software application that comes with your iBook. It's called Internet Explorer (one of two web browsers you can choose from), and it has a nifty little feature that's just the ticket for those times when you want to browse through stuff on the Internet - and you're nowhere near an Internet connection. Like, for instance, in the back of a school bus or minivan.

And how might you do that, you counter. It's simple, really: Internet Explorer lets you archive the contents of a web site - several pages worth, images and all - on your hard disk. Go to the page you want and select "Save As" from the File menu, and the application saves that page as a web archive on your desktop. ...

[nominees for] Best Internet Client Software

• AOL Instant Messenger 4.1
• AvantGo Mobile Internet Service for Macintosh 3.3
• Internet Explorer 5 Macintosh Edition

[nominees for] Best Internet Client Software

• AOL Instant Messenger 4.1
• AvantGo Mobile Internet Service for Macintosh 3.3
• Internet Explorer 5 Macintosh Edition

This was supposed to be a review of Netscape 6, but pretty much turns into a NS6 vs. IE5/Mac review.

Netscape 6's problems begin with its size: This Web bruiser is a 28-megabyte download, compared with 7 MB for Internet Explorer 5. Once installed, Netscape 6 requires about 30 MB of hard drive space; IE 5 uses about 17 MB. And Netscape 6 requires about twice as much memory to run as IE5.

...

Everything about Netscape 6 is slow. It takes 13 seconds to start up on my 400-megahertz Power Mac. Internet Explorer 5 takes less than 4 seconds. Netscape 6 often takes longer to display complex Web pages, and even scrolling is sluggish.

...

When it comes to building a fast, functional Mac browser, Netscape could learn a lot from Microsoft.

Excellent W3C standards support:

• Internet Explorer 5 for Mac

In terms of rendering engine capabilities, MacIE generally has much more solid support for W3C standards than its Windows sibling...

Microsoft, on the other hand, actually achieved (near-complete) standards support in IE5/Mac. Even Netscape's little feature comparison tables concede that IE5/Mac fully supports HTML 4.0 and CSS1 (save for the previously mentioned minor glitches).

Microsoft's Internet Explorer 5 is not only the best Web browser ever released for the Macintosh, but also arguably the best Web browser ever released for any computing platform.

...

IE 5 for the Mac is the first browser on any platform to correctly and fully implement the two-year-old HTML 4 and CSS-1 Web standards. That's important because standards let designers ensure that their pages display correctly on any browser that supports those standards.

Microsoft recently unleashed the successor to its Internet Explorer 4.5 for the Macintosh. IE 5 is not only better than the previous Mac version, it's better than the latest Windows version as well.

...

IE 5 now fully supports HTML 4 and CSS-1 standards.

A lors que Netscape Communicator 6.0 arrive en version bêta, Microsoft lance la version 5.0 d'Internet Explorer pour Macintosh. Cette nouvelle mouture affiche un total respect des standards (HTML4.0, XML 1.0, DHTML, CSS 1.0/2.0, et DOM 1.0 HTML).

C'est lors de la MacWorld Expo de San Francisco que le navigateur le plus populaire de la plate-forme Mac fit sa première apparition. C'est le look sexy de l'interface...

...

Tasman : le gardien du temple. L'évolution du navigateur est bien plus qu'une simple mise à jour: une refonte complète du produit.

Le nouvel Explorer de Microsoft (www.microsoft.com/mac/download/fr) s'est globalement bonifé. L'interface inspirée de l'iMac, tolère la modification des couleurs, le déplacement des icônes ou la réduction des barres de navigation à leurs fonctions clés afin de privilégier l'affichage des pages Web.

I have often been hard on Microsoft and their lack of usability. For example, in 1997 I wrote that IE 4 and Netscape 4 were no better than Mosaic (from 1993) in terms of Web navigation. Fairness thus dictates that I praise Microsoft when they do something right. Which they did for the Macintosh edition of IE 5.

Internet Explorer 5 is solid. While not perfect, it adds a lot of new features and the enhancements are numerous. While we are still waiting for a whole new Netscape Communicator, IE takes the lead in the browser war with more features, better respect of Web standards and speedier Web page delivery than before.

Say what you will of Microsoft (normally we wouldn't stop you), but when it comes to browsers, the evil empire seems to have taken to heart the needs of Mac users. Tasman, a new, lightning-fast rendering engine, backs Internet Explorer 5.

...my choice will now be IE 5 rather than Netscape 4.7.1...

This week, Microsoft released IE5 Macintosh Edition, the first shipping web browser to meaningfully support two key standards: HTML 4, and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Level 1. This is good news whether you use a Mac or not...

...

Executive Summary: IE5/Mac is the best browser ever released on any platform.

At the heart of IE 5.0's revolution is its page-drawing engine, which Microsoft calls Tasman.

Microsoft's next generation browser is a completely new program, from the rendering engine to the new features. The most significant new feature of IE 5 is what you can't see -- the engine that drives the browser.

Tasman, the name of the new rendering engine, has been in development for over a year and Microsoft says the enhancements here have led to a 50 percent speed increase in rendering pages. Tasman allows Internet Explorer 5 to provide full support for the published Internet content standards as defined by the World Wide Web Consortium including: HTML 4.0, Cascading Style Sheets 1.0, Document Object Model 1.0 HTML, Extensible Markup Language (XML) and Portable Network Graphics -- something Microsoft says is not available on any other browser.

Under the hood is where you'll find Internet Explorer 5.0's most compelling new feature: a brand new rendering engine dubbed "Tasman." Tasman aims to help narrow the gap in browser performance between Macs and PCs, and certainly succeeds in doing so.

...

The bottom line

Microsoft has once again succeeded in raising the bar for web browsers by implementing a handful of unique and well thought out features. The competition will be hard pressed to one-up Internet Explorer 5.0.

The browser supports such open Internet content standards as HTML 4.0, CSS 1.0, DOM 1.0, XML 1.0, and PGN. It can render pages at multiple resolutions. The importance of this latter feature is that many Web pages are authored to 96 dpi (dots per inch) so text often looks too small on a Mac screen. With IE 5, you can change the resolution with the click of a button, although the default display size for text is 96 dpi.

"This makes more Internet content accessible to Mac users," Craddock says. "And all these improvements in speed, stability, and reliability are under the hood. Users don't have to know anything about how they work. Pages just work."

With a modern Mac look, you can adjust IE 5's color to graphite or any iMac/iBook flavor (for an eye-popping effect, turn on the tangerine browser color on a tangerine iBook).

MSIE 5.0 looks like it will be a fantastic release, and will be available to the public in late February or early March.

IE 5 sports a redesigned look and new features, including customizable tool bars; an Internet Scrapbook; and an Auction Manager. Users can add or choose the redesigned buttons and change colors, such as the five colors of the iMac, to customize the tool bar in IE 5 for Mac.

...when it comes to Web browsers, users want software that loads pages quickly, renders them correctly, and won't interrupt an online session with repeated crashes. Microsoft says it emphasized these goals when forging Internet Explorer 5.0, the latest Mac version of its Web browser...

All in all, Microsoft has put together a very solid upgrade to what is bound to be the Mac's most popular Web browser.

• Todd Fahrner of Metrius Testimonial

  "Internet Explorer 5 is hands-down the best Mac browser."

  ...

  "There's a television commercial for Volvo that claims one of their luxury models actually cleans the environment as its pampered occupants burn fossil fuels. Let's say this is credible. Internet Explorer 5 is a little like this Volvo. Apart from being a "luxury" browser in terms of speed, stability, user comforts, and good looks, using it can help make the Web better. Internet Explorer 5 for the Mac supports many key W3C standards more completely and correctly than any other released browser on any platform. It's the first to nail all of CSS-1, for instance - even arcana like the elusive ex unit. It's very strong on HTML 4 and PNG, does more CSS-2 than any other shipping browser, and has "experimental" support for XML+CSS, XLink, and other leading-edge UI technologies. Its adoption will displace browsers with inferior support, and it will provide the Web's disproportionately high number of Mac-based developers with a worthy reference platform for many progressive authoring techniques, bettering the Web."

• Susan Lesch of the Web Standards Project

  "My concern was that Web designers were specifying small fonts for Windows users, and Mac users would not be able to read the Web. With four new settings, Internet Explorer 5 users can now control font size display with Text Zoom, with the font Size preference, with the font Resolution setting, and with a user style sheet."

• Jeffrey Zeldman of the Web Standards Project

  "I would recommend this browser to any Mac user. In fact, I'd recommend it to anybody, because I believe it is the most standards-conformant browser released by any company so far, on any computing platform. It's a win for designers and a win for people who use the web. And that is a first."

IE 5 features an all-new rendering engine, named Tasman, which provides a 50 percent increase in performance and greater reliability.

Microsoft has officially released Internet Explorer 5 Macintosh Edition. Initial reports of improvements in functionality and new appearance settings are positive.

The Internet Explorer upgrade incorporates Microsoft's new Tasman rendering engine, which is designed to provide more-reliable rendering of HTML pages. Other new features include a streamlined search function, a Scrapbook tool for storing Web pages and an Auction Manager for tracking online auctions. You can also choose the browser color.

Microsoft Corp. today announced the immediate availability of Internet Explorer 5 Macintosh Edition...

Microsoft® Internet Explorer 5 Macintosh Edition features an all-new rendering engine, named Tasman, which provides a 50 percent increase in performance and greater reliability.

The Mac version of IE5 is simply spectacular, both to look at and to use...

...

Microsoft chose to rewrite its IE browser for Macintosh to conform strictly to international specifications set by the Web Standards Project, says Kwong. "We revised the UI and did an architectural rewrite of the guts, the rendering engine," he says. In both browsers, sites should look the same whether you view them from Mac or PC.

At the Macworld Expo today, Microsoft Corp. unveiled its Microsoft(R) Internet Explorer 5 Macintosh Edition browser software, which introduces a rendering engine as well as functionality that has not been previously available on any browser of any platform.

...

Internet Explorer 5 Macintosh Edition features an all-new rendering engine, code-named "Tasman." "Tasman" provides the best support of any available Macintosh-based browser for the most essential open Internet standards as defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), so Web pages will look and function the way they were intended. "Tasman" also displays text in Web pages much more clearly, thanks to a feature that automatically adjusts the resolution to 96 dots per inch (dpi) instead of the Macintosh-standard 72 dpi. Finally, Internet Explorer 5 is the fastest version ever created - at least 50 percent faster than previous versions.

Microsoft is about to deliver a browser that complies 100 percent with key Web standards, said Jeffrey Zeldman, group leader of the Web Standards Project (http://www.webstandards.org/), whose organization's goal is to further the use of standards on the Internet. This is exactly what Web developers and customers have been asking for.

We have a lot of dedicated, hard-core Mac programmers. We love the Mac and we're really happy to be producing great Mac products.

...responsible for ensuring full compatibility with code already out on the Web as well as new standards formally endorsed by the industry's standard-setting World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and rapidly being adopted by the Web community.

By starting with the existing Internet Explorer engine, Celik achieved compatibility with the HTML variants already on the Web. And, by virtually rewriting that engine, the development team also ensured full compatibility with the new standards. The result was "Tasman," the new rendering engine at the core of Internet Explorer 5.

Internet Explorer 5 for the Macintosh is arguably the best browser ever released. It not only has the best implementation of the CSS to date, it can also handle just about any HTML that you throw at it. It will properly render markup that is completely HTML 4 compliant, or, if you wish, it will emulate the bugs of older browsers.

In Internet Explorer 5.0 for the Macintosh (and later), the browser uses the DOCTYPE element to decide how the document should be rendered.

...

Upon seeing this [strict DOCTYPE], IE5/Mac will kick its rendering engine into standards mode, so that your document will be displayed according to the W3C standards. This affects IE5/Mac's handling of both CSS and HTML.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.x. This is not only the best Macintosh browser available, but arguably the best browser available for any platform. Out of all of CSS1, IE 5 for the Mac lacks only support for blinking text. It only makes some limited forays into CSS2, but the good news is that when something is supported, it's generally supported correctly.

IE 4.5 and 5.0 are worlds above 3.x and even 4.0

In fact, MacIE5 may be closer to 100 percent in both categories.

Even though the CSS Level 1 standard was finalized in 1996, the first browser to meaningfully support it did not appear until the year 2000 (Internet Explorer 5, Macintosh Edition)

The visually impaired may have difficulty reading the type. This is not a problem in IE5/Mac, which allows users to resize type at their discretion by using the included "Text Zoom" function.

In January, Microsoft delivered Internet Explorer 5.0 for Macintosh with a complete implementation of the World Wide Web Consortium's Cascading Style Sheets Level 1 (CSS1) specification. Everybody applauded. Microsoft took great effort to implement 100% of an important public Web standard in the browser.

Adjacent-sibling selectors are supported in Internet Explorer 5.x Macintosh.

Sorry, Netscape. We believe in what you're trying to do, and we wish we could muster more enthusiasm. But two years in Internet time is a decade in any other industry. You once virtually owned this virtual space. How could you forget such a simple fact of the market you used to dominate?

In the two years you've spent not releasing a browser, Microsoft has released three. One did a fine job of supporting CSS and HTML 4, and we hailed it accordingly.

Microsoft has released two major browsers. IE5 for Macintosh/Apple and IE5.5 for Windows

If you are on an Apple using IE 5 for Mac, you are using the most standards compliant browser built.

The child selector is supported in Internet Explorer 5.x for the Macintosh, ...

...it has pulled off a coup in the realm of standards compliance. It's done so well, in fact, that it has eclipsed its cousin, the Windows team: The Macintosh version of IE is now more robust and complete than the Windows version. How often does that happen?

The universal selector is supported in Internet Explorer 5.x for both Windows and Macintosh, as well as IE 4.5 for Mac, ...

Nearly 1,000 people work at Microsoft's Mountain View campus on projects like Internet Explorer for Apple computers, Powerpoint software and Web TV, which enable people to use the Internet in conjunction with television.

• MacCentral.com 2000.06.12: Famous People: MS staffers watch ruling -- on a PowerBook by Dennis Sellers

  The lead story in the "San Francisco Chronicle" business section on Thursday, 8 June was, naturally, about the Microsoft ruling. The article featured a photo showing Microsoft employees at the Mountain View, CA campus reading about the ruling -- on a PowerBook...

"I'm not surprised," said Brad Pettit, 40, a WebTV and Macintosh IE developer. "Fortunately, there are checks and balances in the justice system to keep this from going too far."

I do know there are engineers there who are committed to supporting standards. Not only because I've met some of them through my work with WaSP, but also because - in the case of IE5/Mac - they've actually pulled it off.

• Slashdot 2000.05.19: feedback comment from dhandelm@fas.harvard.edu

  But trust me--if you haven't seen it, IE5 for Mac is one damn fine program.

"Microsoft has been working their tails off and they have a fully Carbonized version of IE 5 shipping on the CD-ROM in DP4. I want to personally take a moment and thank the IE 5 development team. We're working very closely with them and they've been jumping through all sorts of hoops to get this on the disk as we've been finishing up the release. As you know, that's not easy to do those two in parallel. And they were totally committed to getting IE 5 on this disk. And we're thrilled with it. It's a very, very good browser."