Following up my query yesterday about downloading Internet Explorer 4.5 with iCab, thanks to several readers who wrote affirming that they accomplished this with no trouble. I suspect that Microsoft's fast ftp server and my bog-slow rural dialup connection may have had a difference of opinion, so to speak, although I rarely have any difficulty with downloading software other than slowness. iCab's Download manager has proved very reliable over dozens of downloads.

Anyway, I did manage to get a copy of IE 5 down last night off this CNET URL:
ftp://ftp.download.com/pub/mac/internet/ie5en.bin, using IE 4.5. Took 50 minutes. Reader Chris Long says he brought it down with iCab over a T1 line, and "that download time was about one minute." Sigh.

My initial impressions of Internet Explorer 5?

• It's fast! -- probably correct in claiming to be the fastest Mac browser yet

• Bloat-creep has returned. After paring IE 4.5 down to a relatively svelte 3 MB (application) and 8.4 MB (including add-ons), IE 5 has ballooned again to 4.9 MB (application) and 10.4 MB (including add-ons) none of those figures includes the shared library and font junk dumped in the System Folder.

• Memory demand remains the same at 4096k (with VM or RAM Doubler activated)

• The new, "Aqua-themed" interface underwhelms me, and does nothing to convince me that I'm not going to get really tired of Aqua's loud color scheme PDQ. I really liked the old IE 4.5 interface, which I considered the most attractive of any browser, and I shall miss it. The big Aqua icons in IE 5 don't do anything for me, and the oversized "@" symbols scattered about everywhere are already tiresome.

• Installation was a breeze, and IE 4.5 assimilated my IE 4.5 preferences smoothly.

• I was able to drag my Hotlist.html file from iCab into IE 5's Preferences Folder after renaming it "Favorites.html" without a hitch.

• I used IE 4.5 to order a piece of hardware from a secure Website, and it performed flawlessly.

• I did not find IE 5's larger text rendering annoying, even on my PowerBook's 800 x 600 display.

Conclusion: After giving IE 5 a good workout, I shall probably return to my motif of using iCab as my main browser. The speed difference is not all that dramatic, at least on my crummy dialup connection, and I much prefer iCab's much more subdued and tasteful interface. I also am partial to the Germanic precision with which iCab works, and the philosophy of efficient coding that underlies it. (iCab is small -- 3 MB, and demands just 1400k of memory).

However, because iCab still doesn't have Javascript implementation quite ready for prime time, and is not 128 bit encrypted, I still need one of the behemoth browsers for some tasks, and my choice will now be IE 5 rather than Netscape 4.7.1 -- at least until Netscape 6 ships next month.

Charles W. Moore

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February 09, 2010