How to Download and Run Internet Explorer 6, IE7, or IE8 on a Mac for Free

When you're working with old websites that require specific versions of Internet Explorer, it can be frustrating to find out that your modern browser isn't compatible. Luckily, there are ways to download and run older versions of Internet Explorer on your Mac, even if you don't have the original software.

One way to do this is by downloading a VMWare Fusion image of IE6, IE7, or IE8. You'll need to decompress the image, which should result in a folder containing three files: two text files and a vmdk file. If you only need one of these versions, you can save bandwidth by downloading the IE6 image, making a copy of it, and then upgrading that copy to IE7 or IE8.

Once you have your chosen version, you'll need to download and install QEMU, a Mac version of Qemu. This will allow you to run the virtual machine on your Mac. You can also use VirtualBox, another popular virtualization software that is free and open-source.

To get started with VirtualBox, you'll need to download and install it on your Mac. You'll then need to convert any vmdk images you have into a format that VirtualBox can read. This will give you better performance when running the virtual machine.

Before you start, make sure you have a broadband connection and a USB flash drive (or some other way to copy files to the VM before you enable network access). If you're not familiar with how to run these virtual machines, you may want to refer back to our previous post on running Internet Explorer 6 in VMWare Fusion on Mac OS X.

Unfortunately, Microsoft's images are currently broken and only work with VirtualPC. This means that Mac and Linux users are out of luck for now. However, Sun's VirtualBox is a free alternative that can run on all three platforms.

Overall, using virtualization software like VirtualBox can be a great way to save money and still get the functionality you need. With the cost of VMWare Fusion at around $80 per copy, it's nice to have a free option available.

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