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Internet Explorer workaround?

wizwaz3

wizwaz3

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 4, 2006
506
0
Northern Arizona
You've all seen them, those pesky sites that christen only Internet Explorer. Microsoft has abandoned all Mac support for Internet Explorer. So, does anybody know a workaround? I can't even install the IE Tab feature in Firefox. Any website that you can go to that will act as IE? Like a proxy site, but for IE? Anything would be helpful. Thanx!
:apple:
 
if you use firefox, download the user agent switcher plugin for it. You can use that plugin to trick sites into thinking you are using IE.
 
Opera should also have the ability to spoof the UserAgent string, and I believe it can do it without a plug-in.

Truth be told, Safari can do it as well, but you'll need to enable the Debug menu. Plenty of third-party apps will turn that on for you (OnyX being one of them, I think), but it can also be done manually through the terminal.

Instructions for how to turn it on can be found here: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030110063041629
 
or if you want to use a real mac browser (im sorry but both firefox and opera suck on osx) turn on the debug menu in safari and change the user-agent.
 
pengu said:
or if you want to use a real mac browser (im sorry but both firefox and opera suck on osx) turn on the debug menu in safari and change the user-agent.
Click to expand...

How do I do that? I don't like having to open up Firefox to use the User Agent Switcher...
 
wizwaz3 said:
These all tell me to use a terminal or send me to websites that don't have the plug-in it says it has... I'm a first time Mac user, so if anyone could tell me how to enable those codes, or might have a working link to a plug-in, I'd be happy. :)
Click to expand...

Seriously it's easy to do in the terminal, give it a go.

Close Safari first then open 'Terminal' in Applications/Utilities.

Cut and paste "defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1" (without the quotes) into the window, press enter. That's it, close the Terminal and relaunch Safari.
 
tyr2 said:
Seriously it's easy to do in the terminal, give it a go.

Close Safari first then open 'Terminal' in Applications/Utilities.

Cut and paste "defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1" (without the quotes) into the window, press enter. That's it, close the Terminal and relaunch Safari.
Click to expand...

Thank you! I had no idea what Terminal was. I thought I was going to have to do major code or something... It's much easier. Thank you!
 
pengu said:
or if you want to use a real mac browser (im sorry but both firefox and opera suck on osx) turn on the debug menu in safari and change the user-agent.
Click to expand...

I've tried that, but it never works for me. It's too bad because Opera and Firefox really do suck, and I have to use them occasionally for that reason.
 
maxrobertson said:
I've tried that, but it never works for me. It's too bad because Opera and Firefox really do suck, and I have to use them occasionally for that reason.
Click to expand...

I don't seem to really be in regular contact with sites that require IE anymore, but I have also noticed that what is fooled by the spoofing is fairly limited. Limited by what, I'm not exactly sure -- obviously if a site uses DCOM/ActiveX, it won't work. But above and beyond that, there seem to be a number of sites that use a mechanism other than the user designation to determine on what they are running and then refuse Safari.... which strikes me as kind of a whole lot of work for no reason, if these sites are working on other standards-compliant browsers like Firefox.
 
Huh... I guess I must just run in the wrong circles or something, because other than ActiveX junk, the last site I saw that explicitly disallowed non-IE browsers was Buy.com's failed music download service.

...and I never shopped at Buy.com again (used to spend hundreds there), nor would I spend my time at any site that went that far out of its way to block non-IE users.

What I want to know is a convenient way to work around sites that refuse service to IP addresses outside of a particular country. There are a few Japanese streaming video sites that do this, and it's tremendously annoying even if I can *theoretically* see the logic behind it.
 
Makosuke said:
What I want to know is a convenient way to work around sites that refuse service to IP addresses outside of a particular country. There are a few Japanese streaming video sites that do this, and it's tremendously annoying even if I can *theoretically* see the logic behind it.
Click to expand...

There was a discussion about that recently... the best option is to get a proxy service that's being run out of Japan, I think.
 
mkrishnan said:
There was a discussion about that recently... the best option is to get a proxy service that's being run out of Japan, I think.
Click to expand...
Must've missed that one, although I've seen it come up now and then. A proxy is the obvious way around it, but it's kind of a hassle, and you've also got to pick between paying for a quality proxy and randomly prodding open ones, which is a bit shady.
 
Makosuke said:
.... nor would I spend my time at any site that went that far out of its way to block non-IE users......
Click to expand...

I still have a working copy of IE on my G5 iMac because my work requires that I use a couple of sites that only work with IE. One of them had to do with employee work schedules and of course they weren't going to completely redo the site to accommodate me and the other Mac users
 
Makosuke said:
Must've missed that one, although I've seen it come up now and then. A proxy is the obvious way around it, but it's kind of a hassle, and you've also got to pick between paying for a quality proxy and randomly prodding open ones, which is a bit shady.
Click to expand...

I think it was someone who had just moved there from the US and was getting all sites automatically in their Japanese rendering because they thought he/she was Japanese also.... But yeah, I'm not sure of much else.

The one slightly less iffy recommendation that some people suggested, now that I think about it, was finding a Japanese DNS and seeing if that's enough to trick the website.
 
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