How to download and use Internet Explorer for Mac

internet explorer on Mac

The last version that Microsoft released to the Internet Explorer dates from 2013. From then until August 2021, Microsoft has continued to release security updates for one of the most hated browsers on the Internet. Until June 2022, it will continue to be available on Windows 10 computers (not included in Windows 11).

While the latest version of Internet Explorer for Windows was released in 2013 and has continued to receive updates, the macOS version has been abandoned since 2003, when Microsoft announced that it was abandoning development with the release of Safari for OS X. Until now, Internet Explorer was the default browser on Macs.

Considering that it has not been updated for almost 20 years, download and use Internet Explorer on a Mac it doesn't make any sense for different reasons:

  • Because it is very difficult to get hold of such an old version.
  • Because it will not work in versions starting with macOS Mojave, a version that only allows you to run 64-bit applications.
  • Web technology has advanced a lot in these almost 20 years that the Mac version has not been updated, so it will not be compatible with most web pages.

Internet Explorer has been characterized practically since its launch for being the favorite web browser of public administrations Spanish and other countries.

This is because it was the browser with the largest market share, a quota that it had achieved by being included natively from Windows 95, which cost it a significant fine from the European Union and the obligation to allow other browsers to be installed before finalizing the installation of the operating system.

If you need yes or yes, to use Internet Explorer on your Mac, you should know that all is not lost, you do not have to buy a computer managed by Windows, since it is possible emulate Internet Explorer through other browsers, such as Safari.

Safari, no matter how well optimized it is for Mac, is not one of the best browsers we have available, in fact, it is not even among the best, although with the launch of macOS Big Sur, Apple introduced in Safari support for extensions (support that also came to macOS Mojave and Catalina with a Safari update).

Here are the best applications / browsers for use Internet Explorer on your Mac.

Safari

The first thing we must do to be able to visit a web page with Safari as if it were Internet Explorer is activate Development options. To activate the Safari Development menu, we must follow the steps that I show you below.

Activate Safari developers menu

  • We open Safari.
  • We go to the top menu, click on Safari - Preferences.
  • Next, click on the tab Advanced.
  • Within this tab, we check the box Show the Development menu in the menu bar.

At the top of the menu, between Bookmarks and Window options, the menu is displayed Development.

As Microsoft has been abandoning Internet Explorer, the rest of browsers have been doing the same and currently, Safari does not allow us to visit a web page like Internet Explorer directly selecting an option within the Development menu, but if we can continue doing it as we show you below:

Open web in Safari like Internet Explorer

  • We open in Safari the web page that we want to visit as if we were doing it with Internet Explorer.
  • Next, we press the menu Development and we select the option User Agent - Other.
  • In the box shown, we will write:

Mozilla / 5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Trident / 7.0; rv: 11.0) like Gecko

  • And click on Accept. This user agent corresponds to Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 10.

The next time you open Safari, this user agent will be stored in the User Agent - Other menu in the last position, so you will not have to look for it again.

WineBottler

WineBottler

WineBottler is an application designed to run Windows applications on macOS. But not just any application, only the applications that have been adapted and found within this application.

This app is from open source and can download completely free not including any type of purchase.

With WineBottler, we can install Internet Explorer versions 6, 7 and 8, the most popular versions of this browser and on which most public administrations relied when they began to offer their services over the internet.

In addition, thanks to this application, we can install classic Windows applications such as MS Paint, Media Player Classic, Windows Media Player.

With the IE Tab extension for Chrome and Microsoft Edge

IE TAB

Browser extensions allow us to expand the number of functions it offers us, adding extra functions (worth the redundancy). Microsoft launched Windows 10 with a new browser: Microsoft Edge with which the Redmond-based company I wanted us to forget about Internet Explorer forever.

Although it offered support for extensions and another rendering engine, EdgeHTML (derived from Trident used by Internet Explorer), in the end it was more of the same. In 2020, Microsoft Edge received a complete facelift. It had been revamped on the inside, was based on Chromium, and started using the Blink rendering engine, the same one used by Google Chrome and Opera.

Being based on Chromium, it is compatible with each and every one of the Chrome Store web extensions. In case you're curious, Safari uses the WebKit rendering engine.

Now that we know how Microsoft Edge and Chrome allows us install the same extensionsIf you are concerned about your privacy, you should give it a try, it sure won't let you down.

In addition, Chrome is one of the worst browsers available for macOS since always, since it is an inexhaustible sink of resources.

Thanks to the extension AI TAB, you can visit any web page as if it were Internet Explorer. This extension offers support for the technologies so maligned of this browser such as Java, Silverlight, ActiveX, Sharepoint...

In addition, it allows us to select, by clicking on the extension, which version of Internet Explorer we want to emulate, from Internet Explorer 7 to Internet Explorer 11.

Install Windows on the Mac

Windows on macOS

Another option, much more cumbersome and that is only recommended for those users who use Windows applications regularly is to install Windows 10 on a Mac, either through Boot Camp or by using applications that allow us to create virtual machines on our computer with VMWare or Parallels.

If your team is managed by a Intel processor, you will have no problem using this solution. However, if your computer is managed by Apple's ARM processors (M1, M1 Max, M1 Pro or later) you will not be able to.

This is because Windows 10 and Windows 11, at the time of publishing this article (October 2021) they don't sell a version for ARM processors, although it is available on the market but only for equipment that leaves the factory with a processor of this type.


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