Whether you develop for the web and need to see how your site or web app displays itself in multiple browsers, or you just want to visit a site that requires a particular browser that you don't want to use, you may eventually need to use a browser other than Safari. While most of the web is free to access through any browser you'd like, there are occasionally websites (particularly older ones) that need you to use browsers like Internet Explorer, or worse yet, would like you to be on a Windows PC. Or maybe you'd like to see how your site or web app presents itself in Safari on iPhone or iPad, or Chrome on Windows.
Office 2016 for Mac Preview: How do I get rid of Compatibility Mode? The past two updates to Word for Mac 2016 Preview have locked me into a permanent Compatibility Mode cycle. New documents and even old documents created prior to the updates now open in compatibility mode and I'm unable to get out of it. Xone 4d 2019. Once you turn on Compatibility View, Internet Explorer will automatically show that site in Compatibility View each time you visit. You can turn it off by removing the site from your compatibility list.
Luckily, Safari on Mac has the answer for you. Safari allows you to masquerade as the user of other browsers and Windows through a tool in its Develop menu: changing the user agent. Changing the user agent tells websites that you're using a browser other than the version of Safari that you're using on your Mac. It can event tell a website that you're running Windows.
Safari for Mac supports the following user agents:
- Safari for iPhone
- Safari for iPad
- Safari for iPod touch
- Microsoft Edge
- Internet Explorer 11
- Internet Explorer 10
- Internet Explorer 9
- Internet Explorer 8
- Internet Explorer 7
- Google Chrome for Mac
- Google Chrome for Windows
- Firefox for Mac
- Firefox for Windows
Keep in mind that, though Safari will appear to be another browser, it won't actually be that browser. Any web app or site that requires, say, Chrome's Blink rendering engine (which Safari doesn't have) won't work properly, even if Safari's user agent is changed to Google Chrome.
Here's how you go about changing the user agent in Safari.
How to access websites in Safari that require a PC or another browser
- Open Safari from your Dock or Applications folder.
Click Safari in the Menu bar.
- Click Preferences.
Click Advanced.
- Check the box next to Show Develop menu in the menu bar.
Close the Preferences window. The user agent choices will be grayed out and unselectable if you don't.
- Click Develop.
Hover over User Agent.
Click on the user agent of the browser you need. If you need to pretend that you're using a PC, choose Microsoft Edge, a version of Internet Explorer, Google Chrome — Windows, or Firefox — Windows.
Doing this should get you through a website detection-checker.
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Questions?
If you have any questions about masquerading Safari as a Windows web browser, let us know in the comments.
Updated May 2019: Updated through macOS Mojave.
Serenity Caldwell contributed to a previous version of this article.
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When you have Compatibility View turned on in Internet Explorer 11, HubSpot's unsupported browser warnings will be shown as IE 11 is acting as an older browser. To resolve this error, turn off Compatibility View. Mac-supported browsers. Google Chrome (latest version) Safari (latest version) Mozilla Firefox (latest version) Update your web browsers.
One of the thorniest issues in website design is ensuring that all of a site's visitors see it the same way, regardless of which browser or operating system they're using. Microsoft, Google, Mozilla and other browser makers work hard to meet site designers halfway, by meeting formal and informal standards for how their programs should behave. If you want your site to render properly in a browser such as Google's Chrome, or if you want to make it your company's default browser, you shouldn't have to worry about compatibility.
Broad Compatibility All modern browsers render fonts reliably, and handle JavaScript page elements quickly. The differences between browsers usually show up in the way they handle the HTML 5 specification - or, more accurately, how many of its elements they support. There are several benchmark tests available to assess browsers' compatibility with HTML 5, with html5test.com offering one of the most detailed free tests. As of March 2013, Google's Chrome 25 was rated the second-most compatible browser, slightly behind the little-used Maxthon but well ahead of major rivals such as Firefox, IE 10, Opera and Safari. IE Compatibility MIcrosoft's Internet Explorer was the Web's dominant browser for an extended period, and during that time many sites were crafted with IE in mind.
Though they'll typically display in other browsers such as Chrome, some page elements might not work or might render inaccurately. Most current websites are consciously designed for multi-browser compatibility, but if you find yourself viewing IE-optimized sites on Chrome you can use an add-on called IE Tab to provide compatibility.
When you install IE Tab it gives Chrome the ability to run IE within a tab, enabling you to view the page as it was intended to look by the designers. Chrome Compatibility Chrome's broader support for HTML 5 means that some pages will render more accurately in Chrome than in Internet Explorer. If you use both browsers on a regular basis, and find that sites you visit regularly don't work correctly on IE, you might install Google's Chrome Frame for IE. It's a plug-in for Internet Explorer that switches from IE's own rendering engine to Chrome's, when it encounters a site that supports Chrome Frame.
That provides IE users with the same experience as Chrome users, until they leave that page. Testing and Design If you're building or upgrading your website and want to ensure the maximum compatibility with Chrome and other modern browsers, Google's own Webmaster Tools page provides several pieces of fundamentally sound advice. First and foremost, write clean, well-constructed HTML. Specify how browsers should render your fonts, so the browser's own settings won't change the page's appearance. Avoid using browser-specific features, which won't work in other browsers and sometimes not even in other versions of the same browser.
Be cautious in your use of Active X, Flash and JavaScript, which aren't always handled well by visiting browsers. Test your site in as many browser versions as you can, to identify any irregularities.
I received a 'how to' sheet of how to be able to view this website but it wants me to download Internet Explorer (excuse me while i say yuck!). So the directions state: Under 'Tools' click on 'compatibility view settings'. Where is says 'add this website' write in the website and then click add and close. Log off and reboot. I live on Mozilla on all my devices. I recommend it to anyone who has not been introduced yet. I cringe to think of being forced to use internet explorer!!!
Thank you for all you do!!! I received a 'how to' sheet of how to be able to view this website but it wants me to download Internet Explorer (excuse me while i say yuck!).
So the directions state: Under 'Tools' click on 'compatibility view settings'. Where is says 'add this website' write in the website and then click add and close. Log off and reboot. I live on Mozilla on all my devices. I recommend it to anyone who has not been introduced yet. I cringe to think of being forced to use internet explorer!!!
Thank you for all you do!!!
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