IETester - A New debugging Tool For Windows XP And Vista
IETester is a simple free (for professional and personal use) Web Browser which enables you to get the full rendering and JavaScript capabilities of all major browsers: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Safari, Google Chrome, and Android. This is a project initiated by Sun Microsystems as part of the Open Source project called Mozilla Firefox. This is part of their plan to bring the browser environment into an open source foundation - the foundation being Open Source. This is an extremely powerful piece of software which is continually being improved upon and added features are added almost weekly. For those who are interested in diving right in and beginning to develop websites using this technology, I recommend getting involved with the IETester forums where there is active participation in the IETester development process as well as many user based tests and bug-fixes posted daily.
The only disclaimer that I can make about this product is that it doesn't work with the Microsoft based browsers such as IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari. This is due to limitations enforced by the way in which these browsers interact with the ActiveX technologies which are used by Internet Explorer. The interaction can still be achieved by using FireFox and Opera however they have not developed any specific web development technology that will work with the IETester. You will need to read the documentation and follow the steps within the IETester installation guide to get this browser up and running. There is also a 30 day trial period which will give you an opportunity to try out the software and see how well it works with your current operating system before you decide whether or not to purchase the full version.
The benefits of using this software are that it is cross-browser and extensible so can be used with any number of browsers and also supports the latest versions of each of these browsers. I've seen some reports of crashes on IE but this could just be because of a poor connection. The fact remains that this is one very useful tool for any IT professional who wants to be able to debug IE using third party tools. If you would like to download the latest release and free yourself from having to visit Microsoft support every time you want to check IE errors then check out the official website for the IETester and download your copy today.
