The latest salvo in the browser wars will leave Mac zealots wondering where to place their loyalties. Internet Explorer 4.0 for the Mac offers a compelling alternative to Netscape Communicator; corporate logos aside, it could become many a Mac head’s chosen browser. IE still has its faults, but perhaps fewer than Communicator.
Gone are the days when a browser was just a browser. Internet Explorer 4.0 comprises a suite of tools: Explorer for Web browsing, Outlook Express for mail and newsgroups, Microsoft NetShow for audio- and video conferencing, and Microsoft’s version of a personal Web server. In the past these additions felt like window dressing, included only to pad the feature lists, but Outlook Express is a solid email client, a legitimate alternative to Claris Emailer (which may soon be defunct) or Qualcomm’s Eudora Pro. The only thing missing from IE’s suite is a counterpart to Netscape’s Composer — an HTML authoring tool. Given the pathetic quality of Composer, though, we may be better off without it.
Internet Explorer’s code, while 100 percent Mac, seems more cluttered this time around. Expect more crashes than in the past and some odd behavior when downloading. On the plus side, however, this installation won’t unduly load up your System Folder, and Active Setup allows you to download just the elements of the suite you want to use.
Unfortunately, Explorer’s performance breaks with the speed-boost precedent previous versions of Microsoft’s browser set. In our testing, IE 4.0 was somewhat slower than Netscape Navigator 4.0 and considerably slower than Internet Explorer 3.0. It almost feels like a downgrade. On the other entire suite consumes a reasonable 8.7MB of hard drive space.
Internet Explorer now supports Dynamic HTML and the W3C’s proposed standards for CSS1 Cascading Style Sheets and Document Object Models. Aside from basic Cascading Style Sheet support. Communicator supports only a proprietary layers format that the W3C rejected as a standard. DHTML is still new to the Web, however, and some sites use early versions of the proposed standard, so don’t expect any browser to manage this new, somewhat chaotic element flawlessly.
Explorer also offers a slew of offline and automatic browsing options. Its ability to save entire pages or sites — resulting in one double-clickable document — is fantastic for archiving or browsing offline. It also features side tabs, which slide out for favorite sites; channels (configurable feeds of information from Web sites); history (where you’ve been recently); and search options.
Overall, Internet Explorer is a solid Web suite that offers access to the latest Internet technologies without hogging your system’s resources.
Love, Scott. (April 1998). Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0. MacAddict. (pg. 40).
Microsoft Corporation
Applications
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MSIE4.zip
Emulating this? It could probably run under: 
SheepShaver
