I am new to Ubuntu 12.04 OS, I need to check a website for browser Compatibility with IE, I have already tried Playonlinux and Wine Softwares. but IE is repeatedly crashing, Is there any option to have IE on Linux?
asked Dec 9, 2015 at 10:06
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2 Answers
Internet Explorer is not native to Ubuntu/Linux so installing IE locally will give you different behaviors than IE on Windows (as you are forcing compatibility with unofficial APIs). As such, I would recommend against that approach.
Instead I would suggest running IE with a Virtual Machine
Microsoft has created some customized Windows VHDs with the purpose of allowing web designers to test websites in Internet Explorer 6 to 11 and Microsoft Edge, for Free for 30 days:
You can run these which can be run via most virtual machines (Virtualbox being my preference)
You can download the virtual machine images from this website provided by Microsoft
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2You should definitely use Virtual Machines (VMs) for this. I use VirtualBox as my VM host and the free Windows VMs from dev.windows.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/linux Another advantage of VMs is that you can save snapshots, which is extremely useful for testing purposes. Dec 9, 2015 at 13:33
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1Unless MS has changed policies I wouldn't recommend putting any significant effort into customizing their free browser test VMs. Instead of trying to lock the OS down to only run IE and nothing else to make them unattractive to people trying to avoid paying for normal licenses, they've configured their activation to self destruct after a few months. If your customization is limited to adding bookmarks for your sites and a corporate HTTPS cert spinning new copies up as the old ones die is easy. If you try to turn them into normal OS installs you're going to be hurting. Dec 9, 2015 at 19:00
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I would try Parallels before settling on VirtualBox to see which works best for you. I switched from virtualBox to Parallels as I found Parallels much easier to use and maintain. Dec 12, 2015 at 11:54
As a former virtualbox user, my preference for testing my apps on ie8, ie9, ie10 and ie11 is now:
Parallels. a paid piece of software (about $80-$100) that I now consider invaluable for my IE testing.
http://www.parallels.com/
I also like Parallels because you can set up bookmarks for the URL's you frequently test and they are the next time you go to use it.
Parallels also does 2 really useful things automatically - it syncs your desktop so that files places on either desktop get auto transferred to the other desktop. Nice. Also Parallels automatically connects your existing printers so when you go to print in your windows vm the output gets sent to your main machine and its printer. These two conveniences make its use a lot easier.
For Windows-IE you download time-limited trials and save snapshots so you can just rollback to them when the trial expires.
In addition to that we also use browserstack which lets you just use an external service. This is a solution but not an answer to actually running IE locally. However it does let one look at thousands of other devices and versions
I used to use virtual box which lets me run windows virtual machines but since I found Parallels I find that much easier to use and maintain.
Sauce Labs is another external provider that provides a lot of valuable extras such as automatic screen shots and even movies of the workflow!
answered Dec 9, 2015 at 11:29
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1If you didn't know, Microsoft is officially dropping IE8 support on Jan 12, 2016: blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ie/2014/08/07/… Dec 9, 2015 at 17:48
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1That's good to hear. Unfortunately not all our users, including those that we generate $ from will stop using ie8 on Jan 11, 2016. I only wish! Dec 9, 2015 at 22:14
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