Spend a morning with Internet Explorer 5

If you are one of those people who love to complain about old browsers, it’s important to remember just how far browsers have come.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to do just that by setting my default browser to Internet Explorer 5 Mac.

Got a Mac? Download IE5 Mac and do the same. (If you use that other operating system, install MultipleIE and use IE5 for Windows.)

Stuff and Nonsense on IE5Mac

For A Beautiful Web on IE5Mac

Hardboiled Web Design on IE5Mac

Take screenshots of the sites you visit and upload them to the IE5 Mac Flickr group. How long will you stand it? My money is on less than an hour.

After spending any time with IE5, I bet you’ll feel a whole lot better and more confident about explaining that web sites don’t and can’t look the same in every browser.

There have been 10 replies

1
Nathan Staines

Ok I’ve learnt my lesson, I’ll never bad mouth IE6 again. I lasted about an hour in IE5 and still had to switch between that and Firefox a few times.
2nd Mar 2010
2
Barry Bloye

Okay, but I insist on a ‘safe word’. ;)
2nd Mar 2010
3
Aries

I had to do this recently. It’s an utterly soul destroying experience! It’s silly that we are compelled to support these old legacy browsers when the Web is developing so rapidly. It’s certainly is difficult, if not impossible to keep things looking the same if you intend on making your website look current.
2nd Mar 2010
4
Matt Smith

You mean you guys aren’t optimising for IE5?

Sheesh, Slackers.
2nd Mar 2010
5
Jon Roobottom

Is something wrong?

Why are my transparent PNGs working in IE5?

Am I slowly loosing my mind?
2nd Mar 2010
6
Will Kelly

IE5 Mac was brilliant compared to IE 5 for Windows! Thankfully it’s not even on my MultipleIE install.
2nd Mar 2010
7
Saif Malhas

“(If you use that other operating system)”

Do you mean that Operating System that owns more than 90% of the market?

(This comment was left on For A Beautiful Web)
3rd Mar 2010
8
Nathan Staines

I just noticed in the screenshot I took of Firefox that it says “Meet the World’s Best Browser - Switching from IE to Firefox is quick and easy - a safer, faster, and more advanced Web is only a few clicks away!”

Love it!
4th Mar 2010
9
john

It is awful to try this :) I couldn’t last 5 minutes. I will stick with my Netscape’s baby, the beautiful and fast Firefox :D
4th Mar 2010
10
Michael

Why spending time with this old and unsafe browser, except that the client pays for that?
People could buy every year (or two) a new handy, so they could install an newer browser than IE5 or 6. ;-)
Win2000 goes with Firefox and Win95 goes with Opera10 ... ;-)
8th Mar 2010