End nears for Mac version of IE - no comments

If I can be allowed two techy posts in one day, the BBC say:

Microsoft has advised Mac users of Internet Explorer (IE) to switch to rival browsers such as Apple's Safari.

The advice came as the software giant formally announced the end of IE for Apple Macs.

Naturally many people are saying, "Thank god", but that's being a little unfair to Microsoft. The BBC seem to be quite happy to give the impression that the abomination known as IE 6 for Windows, the subject of endless whines from web developers, frustrated calls to Developer Support, and endless critical security patches, is the same beast as IE 5.2 for Mac, when, in fact, they couldn't be more different.

IE 5 for Mac appeared in 2000 which is, what, well over a year after IE 5 for Windows, and offered then-groundbreaking support for CSS and web standards, which put it well ahead of all rivals for probably 2 years, and helped kill off the decrepit Netscape Navigator. It continues to offer a unique, Mac-oriented user-interface (admittedly very much overtaken since Mac OS X's maturity), was developed by Microsoft's renowned team of Mac-lovers, offers features that no other browser has (Scrapbook, and Page Holder, to name just two), and is completely unlike its Windows counterpart in not having required security patches.

So, terribly dated, and deserving of the chop though it is, Mac users ought not to jump on its grave: curse Microsoft's pernicious influence on the Windows platform, not on the Mac OS.

Going back to the fairly feeble BBC article, there's this:

The only potential problem for Mac users could be with websites designed to work exclusively with IE.

In June, web-testing firm SciVisum surveyed 100 UK websites and found that one in 10 of them failed to work properly on the Firefox browser.

To be honest, I think this problem is exaggerated for Mac users. Though I spend most of my browsing time with blogs, I can't remember the last time I needed to use the copy of IE I have tucked away. Whereas on Windows, unprofessional web developers (and blinkered managers) occasonally perpetrate sites that only work on IE, this ignorance is normally felt by all Mac users, irrespective of their browser of choice.