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The Macintosh Internet experience took a giant stride forward this week with the release of Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 and Outlook Express 5.0.2. For the first time in several years, Mac users have a mature Web browser nimble enough to surf Windows-infested waters without drowning in unreadable text.
A growing number of Web sites do not look very good on a Macintosh with either Explorer or Navigator. It is more difficult now than ever before to insure display compatibility, especially as browsers become more numerous and complex. Strict adherence to HTML standards was the first
causality of the browser wars, and moreover, HTML was never intended to describe exactly how a page is displayed in the first place. To further complicate matters, Windows display resolution is 96dpi, whereas a Mac uses 72dpi. The result: a mixed up collection of standards, browsers, and platform differences that make it impossible to create a Web page that will display exactly how the designer intended.
One of the most common problems I have encountered is text too small to read. For example, when a site utilizes fixed text sizes, a tiny Windows typeface would become unreadable on a Mac because of the difference in monitor resolutions. Internet Explorer 5 addresses the problem two ways. First, with a user preference to render Web pages in either 96dpi (default, Windows standard) or 72dpi (Mac standard). And second, the "Larger Text" and "Smaller Text" buttons grow and shrink all the text on a page, not just some of it. After several days of intense use, I began to like the larger overall text sizes, and I have found it much easier to fiddle with the settings inside Explorer rather than trying a different browser to read a troublesome Web page.
Internet Explorer 5's page rendering engine, dubbed Tasman, has one more noticeable difference: speed. When it came to rendering a page, Internet Explorer 4.5 never seemed fast, and even speed champ Navigator has seemed a little slow lately. However, with Tasman pages pop up strikingly fast. On my three-year-old G3 with a DSL connection, most pages appear almost as fast as if they were cached on a local hard drive. With the endless subtle rendering delays finally history, and with liberal use of text AutoComplete and AutoFill forms, Explorer 5 feels like the fastest browser yet.
Faster performance is also the main feature of the latest incremental update to Outlook Express. I am not the fastest typist in the world, but I could type faster than the letters would appear in OE5.0.1, which seemed a little comical given the power of modern desktop computers. Thankfully, the lag has been fixed, along with several other delays that have garnered the most complaints on the Outlook Express mail list since version 5 was released.
Three years ago, when Microsoft recommitted to making the best products possible on the Macintosh, many people, including me, were doubtful. But latest versions of Internet Explorer and Outlook Express demonstrate that anything is
possible.
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"Rendering
an Opinion on Explorer 5"
