.gov site on mac should really really work
December 4, 2010 9:19 AM

I need to view IE on a mac (OSX). How?

I have to put together a presentation and need to be able to view this .gov page on my mac OSX. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
posted by cestmoi15 to Computers & Internet (12 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
Use VirtualBox to install a virtual machine running Windows (and IE). Alternatively, you can use Parallels, though I believe Parallels will cost money. Alternatively, if you're willing to reboot, you can use Bootcamp, which should come with Snow Leopard.

In all these cases, you will need a copy of Windows for the installation.
posted by chengjih at 9:27 AM on December 4, 2010


For what it's worth, that page looks fine in Google Chrome.

But you have a few options if you need IE. One is to run the Windows version of IE using Winebottler. Here's how.

Alternately, you could install Windows and use Boot Camp or Parallels to run it on your Mac. Or you might get 90% towards an IE experience by spoofing the user agent on your browser. Firefox with plugins can pretend to be IE to a website.
posted by zippy at 9:30 AM on December 4, 2010




Microsoft makes virtual machine images for running IE available for free. They can be converted to be run by Parallels or VirtualBox. However, sometimes Microsoft has not allowed these images to be activated properly when run under 3rd-party emulation software, so this solution may or may not work, depending on the whims of Microsoft at this moment.
posted by Hither at 9:37 AM on December 4, 2010


If you have Firefox installed, you can use this addon which shows the page in IE.
posted by a womble is an active kind of sloth at 9:41 AM on December 4, 2010


you can use this addon

IEView is Windows-only.
posted by zippy at 9:43 AM on December 4, 2010


If you have Firefox installed, you can use this addon which shows the page in IE.

That only works on Windows.
posted by Nothlit at 9:45 AM on December 4, 2010


oh right, sorry! I remove my suggestion
posted by a womble is an active kind of sloth at 9:46 AM on December 4, 2010


Here's the Firefox User Agent Switcher. If you set your user agent to IE, you may see a more IE-like view of the site.
posted by zippy at 10:21 AM on December 4, 2010


Looks fine from my Mac as well.
posted by contraption at 10:33 AM on December 4, 2010


Front page looks fine here. If really nothing else is working, don't do Parallels or Bootcamp; grab winebottler, install the stuff in the package, go to "Install existing prefixes" and pick one of the Microsoft Internet Explorer options.
posted by curious nu at 10:46 AM on December 4, 2010


The front page is fine. It is what my link that doesn't work redirected to, sorry. From the front page click data +statistics then HRSA in my neighborhood. You then get an error message for not using IE.

If you do use IE you can make some really cool 'hood maps from the data, which is what I wanted to demo.

Winebottler sort of worked, I have a friend on the way with a windows machine.

Thanks!
posted by cestmoi15 at 11:04 AM on December 4, 2010


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