IE : Java Glossary

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Internet Explorer 11  IE
IE (Internet Explorer), Microsoft’s Browser that comes with an ancient old version of Java or no Java at all. The latest versions are: Microsoft has settled their lawsuits, so hopefully IE will eventually start shipping with an up-to-date Java virtual machine. There is a different variant for each Windows OS (Operating System).

IE comes bundled with Microsoft’s various operating systems. Click on the icon above to download.

As of 2016-01-12 Microsoft is dropping support for all versions but 11.

To clear the in-RAM ClassLoader Applet cache, click Tools ⇒ Java Console ⇒ x .

Many commercial sites test their web pages only with IE and make use of IE’s weird extensions and forgiveness of certain bugs, which cause the website to be viewable only with IE. Even the Canadian government sometimes pulls this cheap stunt. I write rude letters to webmasters who do this, but that’s the way the world is.

IE does printing better than any other browser, but it still can’t break pages properly. Many commercial websites test only with IE, so IE is the best browser to use for online shopping.

If you shut IE down in the middle of a download, the transfer is not interrupted. It continues to completion in its own tiny window.

Modern IE comes with either no Java support though older versions came with an ancient old proprietary MS Java that supports only JDK (Java Development Kit) 1.1.4. It does not include RMI (Remote Method Invocation) and a few other parts of Java. It does not support Java version 1.2 or later which means it lacks support for Swing and Collections. The JVM (Java Virtual Machine) is no longer even available on their site, so it is for all practical purposes dead. Microsoft explained they pulled it to simplify their legal battles with Sun over Java. You must replace the Java that comes with it with the most recent JRE (Java Runtime Environment) from Sun.

IE zoom is inept. To see what I mean try the Opera zoom then the IE zoom. IE makes you scroll both horizontally and vertically to read the page. It does not reflow the text the way Opera does so that you can read without horizontally scrolling.

You can install the Java Plug-in 1.8.0_131 into IE as a side effect of installing the JDK or JRE. If you install the Plug-in into older versions of IE, you need weird OBJECT HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) to invoke Applets. You can install the plug-in as the native Java into older versions of IE with some kludges at: Nifty.com. Then it will work with ordinary APPLET tags. Why bother. Just upgrade IE to 6.0 or 7.0 and be done with it and install the JDK  1.8.0_131 plug-in.

Make sure you turn off ActiveX and autodownload or you will pick up trojans or viruses similar to the, thankfully defunct, CometCursor in your website travels.

If you have any control of your customers, get them to install the Java plug-in 1.8.0_131. If not, limit yourself to the ancient Java version 1.1 features and exhaustively test the code with an old compiler and runtime to make sure you did not accidentally use a new feature.

PCWorld rated IE the worst browser and the 8th worse technical product of all time.

IE, however, is one of the few browsers to properly support the <COL command both style and alignment. This makes IE the best browsers to view the HTML cheat sheet which makes use of it to apply styles to entire columns. You must have the Compatibility View option enabled. It is not as important now, since I have been converting the site over to put individual alignment specifications on every cell.

Browser Colgroup Support
browser version col class
supported
col align
supported
HTML5 entities
supported
Firefox 59.0.3
Chrome 53.0.2785.92
Opera 48.0.2685.52
SeaMonkey 2.49.2
Safari 5.1.7
Avant 2018:1
Edge 25,10586.0.0
IE 11 11.0.9600.17239
IE 10 10.02.9200.16521
IE 9 9.0.8112.16421
IE 8 8.0.7601.17514
IE 7 7.0.6000

Those browsers marked with an x all have a bug. They will not render <col class="xxxx">s correctly. The ones with a tick render it correctly. The Opera people say this is a feature not a bug. The language lawyers claim the W3 spec says that the browser is supposed to ignore the color attribute from the <col class. Logically, I think the <col styles should apply to the entire column, but not to <th rows. In addition Firefox, SeaMonkey, Safari and Flock also ignore the <col align attribute. Opera and IE render it properly.

Firefox, SeaMonkey and Opera support almost all the HTML5 entities. Chrome and Safari support many of them.

Colgroup Test
  Style Test Alignment Test
On Every row style alignment
Using Colgroup style alignment

If both cells in the left hand Style Test column are the same colour, then your browser (the one you are using now to view this page) supports <col class=.

If both cells in the right hand Alignment Test column right-align, then your browser supports <col align= correctly.

Dreamweaver lets you apply a css style to all rows individually. Last revised/verified: 2018-05-06

IE does not have its own individualising skins/themes. However, lets you modify the colours. It takes on the system theme. I like each of my browsers to look distinctly different so I can easily tell which one I am using.

Internet Explorer 9

IE9 is not ready for prime time. I when I used it, it froze on almost every page. Further, the 64-bit version refused to run Java Applets. After a few updates it started using the 32-bit Java. However, then the 32-bit version refused to install. When you install IE9, it will remove IE8. Like IE8, Microsoft insists you ok running Java on every page, even though there is no danger from unsigned Applets constrained to the sandbox. This pettiness is part of their ongoing war to crush Java in favour of C#. You can tell if you are running the 32 or 64 bit version by clicking the About box. The 64-bit version has the phrase 64-bit edition. The 32-bit version has no label.

Tips

Testing

Follow the instructions here to get IE and Java working together.

Internet Explorer, starting with version 10 stopped supporting conditional comments. e.g. <!--[if lt IE 9]>
some text just for IE users.
<[endif]
-->
No longer work.s


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