This morning, I was writing some code and decided to go see how the site I’m working on was coming along in IE6. Being on a windows 7 box, this isn’t readily available to me, and IETester has decided it will simply crash any time I try to use it to do anything.
For the last little while, I’ve been using spoon.net’s excellent application streaming service (free of charge, I might add) to test on browsers I haven’t or can’t install. It offers Firefox 2 and 3, chrome up to 7, safari 3 and 4, opera 9 and 10 and up until this morning, Ie 6 through 9.
It was fantastic. A no hassle way to run IE6, 7, 8, and 9 without any installers (aside from the spoon plugin the first time), no hacking around with DLLs, no need to run a virtual box or to multiboot. It was truly the web developer’s best friend.
This morning, when I went to launch IE6, I was directed here: http://www.spoon.net/ie.aspx
I don’t claim to know why Microsoft is doing this, but whatever the reason, it just seems petty.
They make truckloads of money off of their other products, their browsers are a black hole for cash because they can’t get it right. Spoon is not charging for this service, so they’re not profiting off it directly either. Microsoft claims to care about developers (I think I remember Steve Ballmer saying something to that effect once or twice), and yet they don’t provide us any way to easily support their monstrous creations that refuse to die.
If they are going to support IE6 until 2014, they should provide the means for us to do so as well - or at the very least let another company do so at no cost to them.
So here I am, needing to test for all IE versions except 8, and no way to do so. Does anyone have a solution to this problem?
I will look into using IE tester again, but my last attempt at that failrd horribly, and I’d rather not have to virtualize 3 additional operating systems to test inept browsers. Any help that sitepoints members can offer is appreciated.
Many Thanks in advance,
Zarin
Running Windows 7x64, IE8 currently installed, along with Firefox 3/4, Chrome 7.
Disclaimer: There might be a better place to discuss this, but this was the best fit I saw at the time, and it’s a fairly big issue.