Why no internet explorer for Mac OS X?

[joeb]

I was looking at possibly bying a Mac, but was told that there isn't internet explorer for it. That doesn't make any sense.

[Karl Martineau]

I was looking at possibly bying a Mac, but was told that there isn't internet explorer for it. That doesn't make any sense.

Microsoft decided to quit making IE for Mac in 2003, about the same time Apple introduced Safari. There are many other web browsers available for Mac though, including Firefox and Chrome, and between those and Safari you should not have any trouble browsing the web. Is there any particular reason you need Explorer? If not, I wouldn't let that keep you away from looking at Macs.

I do have to agree though that it doesn't make any sense. Even though I'm not a fan of Internet Explorer, it seems silly for Microsoft to not even make it.

[abstractrobbie]

To be honest I am surprised a little thing like no IE would sway you towards not buying one. IE is not the best browser around, Firefox and Google Chrome take 1st & 2nd place whether you are using Mac or Windows and I think it is hard to decide on which way around they would go.

Firefox certainly has quite a few more addons than Chrome but Chrome boasts all the important ones that you would use.

Safari is a poor browser as far as I am concerned and has been since they updated it to Safari 5. Pages definitely take longer to load in Safari and I have never suffered as many issues with crashes as I do with Safari either.

The main useful tool in Safari is the Reader tool but since its launch there is now a plugin for both Firefox and Chrome called iReader which does exactly the same job anyway.

I think what you have to really ask yourself is why you want and why you need a Mac.

I have used Macs for years as I used to be involved in Music production and Mac out performs a PC in that respect as well as having particular software which is only available on the Mac.

I soon realized that using a Mac was much more stable than a PC. A single app crash on the PC usually results in the entire system screwing up requiring a restart whereas the Mac allows you to Force quit a single program. You can do the same thing kind of in Windows by pressing CTRL ALT DEL and then closing a program from the list but it requires you to be able to get in there first and if the system has frozen you are screwed, plus attempting to quit a process in Windows that way doe snot always close it down or can even make things worse.

The only MUST for Windows for someone like me is the gaming ability as many games only work in Direct X. That being the case I have Windows 7 installed on my Mac in native mode via boot camp which means when I want to play games I just boot the computer into Windows and I am away.

If you don't game but still require Windows for less intensive and CPU/Memory heavy software then you can install Windows under Parallels instead and just run the software from the Mac environment.

[joeb]

No way in hell will i use Chrome. I don't like the idea of Google tracking everything I do on the internet .

Why I want Internet Explorer? It's what I'm familiar with.

[abstractrobbie]

So you don't trust Google but do trust the ever so friendly Microsoft corp do you :P Sorry just joking but to be honest Google Analytics is only one of many things that infiltrate your system and sneakily follow your every move as you browse.

There is a modded version of Chrome available plus you can install other things which stop tracking. Then again you can use Firefox or a number of other browsers instead. There is not all that much to get your head around with a browser, they all pretty much do the same things.

Anyway the fact is unless you want to run a very old version of IE for OSX you are screwed. So the choice you need to make is how important is IE over buying a Mac... The choice is yours of course but IE is not the most popular browser around and it most certainly is not the fastest.

My opinion on why someone should use Mac.

There are no viruses in the wild for OSX

It is faster and much more stable than anything Microsoft have ever produced, in all the years I have used a Mac I have never experienced any serious crashes or problems resulting in restarts, data loss, reinstalls or sitting waiting for the system to check discs.

You have the best of both worlds, if you need it, by installing Windows under bootcamp. Installing OSX on a PC is also possible but it is not really supported and is less stable and problematic.

If you do stick with a PC there is always Ubuntu if your aim is to get away from Windows btw.

[FmaRara]

I'm very glad to see yours message here

[cHeDdAr]

Internet explorer sucks