Download test VMs of IE for OSX, Linux or Windows
modern.ie
modern.ie
Still frustrating, but work-arounds are there if needed.
Not a viable solution.
In the end we just set up an activated VM (using MSDN licenses) with RDP enabled for each config on a Win 8.1 HyperV machine that sits in the corner of the office.
If I recall correctly, some of them even come with instructions for re-arming the activation timer, which can get you a bit more time out of them.
Not joking (and I know this sucks) but there are a shit ton of IE users out there still and I'm not willing to hang our product for convenience.
Vendor specific code is a reality we're going to have to live with for a long time yet.
But that's not my case, and the same goes for many others; Microsoft already got the hint on that and they are starting to catch up and adhere to standards on their latest versions and trying to get everybody to use them (it was about time).
Since there are way more teams like ours than big teams funded with huge piles of cash, we have actually managed to put the ball in their court and they cannot make us do the monkey dance as much as they used to. Can we all avoid writing vendor specific code? Maybe not unconditionally, but we are almost there.
The goal of most real-world software is to deliver a working, usable product – not to produce lots of standards-compliant code.
For us in many cases it means to throw away vendor specific solutions in favor of most-major-browser compatible subsets of the current industry standards, even if it means throwing out support for older versions of IE.
For some users it might mean using a different service, but for most of them it means switching to a different browser because their favorite app doesn't work on IE.
And that's why Microsoft is going for standards compliance and timely browser updates more than ever.
I use resources like MDN and some automated testing tools to make sure the subset I use is properly implemented on all major browsers (all but IE <= 8, which really sucks at it).
But, subset or not, what I write is still 100% standards compliant code, in almost every project I'm involved with. I avoid as much as possible writing vendor specific code.
The result is I hardly ever get a complaint about my code working on one browser and not working on another.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19402478/is-it-possible-t...
They worked on any PC I tried them on, but without GPU acceleration, although I had to install a VMWare MacOS enabler (that was bundled with the VM) because VMWare disallows OSX by default I believe, might be different with Virtualbox.
I could see them doing it if it was a gateway to an ecosystem the way Chrome is for Google. For "Linux" i.e. some specific variant that became popular with consumers.
They shipped IE5 for Unix a long while back believe it or not!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_for_UNIX
I actually tripped over a solitary installation of it about 5 years ago as well!
As for IE for Mac - that was around forever ago.
For Android? It's possible. They do sell Android phones.
I take some comfort in that MS now feel the need need to explain how I might use wget. But, sorry, but if you really want me to test my site against your proprietary browser, you need to remove your ugly time limited license, otherwise my site says "use a standards complaint browser, and I don't care care about your proprietary crap any more".