Microsoft Internet Explorer v4.0 for the Mac & Outlook Express -- Update 4

I installed IE4 and OE, the 68K versions, on my Quadra 605 following the protocol recommended by Chris Malanga and posted yesterday. Fortunately, ObjectSupportLib was not installed in my system folder so maybe it happens only with the PPC version. IE4 on my Q605 is much slower than Netscape Communicator 4.04. For example, Macs Only! took an average of 45 seconds to load using IE4 and only 20 seconds with NC4 (Still too long. Am I spoiled!). The reloading of cached pages is about the same between the two so IE4 loses its big edge in the 68K version. Despite having allocated 16 MB of RAM to IE4, I got several Type 1 errors while browsing. However, the main problem is that it is just too slow--I tired of watching the mouse pointer change to a tiny blank document with simulated text being typed on it seemingly for forever. I retired IE4 (68K). OE seemed to work just fine so I am continuing to use it for evaluation purposes.

Edward Theologis is unable to figure out how to read Greek sites with IE4. He has no problem with Netscape.

Wolfgang G. Tichy reported two Outlook Express bugs. Every new message window in OE is too far down and to the right (same for me) and one has to manually center it. OE loses bulleted lists in HTML when the send button is pushed.

The Startup Delay on PowerBases and Performa 6400's, i.e. Macs with the "Alchemy" motherboard, and maybe others, will be eliminated in Mac OS 8.1 according to Apple Support Rolando Nanez's 1/8/98 post on Apple's Tech Exchange (formerly Tech Support Online).

The roughly 30-second delay (the more RAM installed the longer the delay) between turning on the computer (black screen) and the beginning of system loading (gray screen) appeared in Mac OS 7.6.1. There is no answer yet as to why the delay occurs. Perhaps not so coincidentally, the modem problem (i.e. needing to turn on an external modem before startup for it to be recognized) experienced by Alchemy board computers with external modems under System 7.5.3, 7.5.5 and Mac OS 7.6 was fixed in Mac OS 7.6.1. Alchemy board computers got another surprise in Mac OS 7.6.1, it disabled L2 cache. Apple fixed the cache problem with a patch to reset L2 cache shortly thereafter. Macs Only! has covered these issues and others on the PowerBase Issues page since their discovery.