Todd Smith-Salter

I don't know about anyone else, but I find testing Internet Explorer incredibly difficult on a Mac. There are no really fantastic methodologies for making it happen, only a few best practices.

Here a couple things I do know

• Don't use IE Tester or Multiple IE. These two solutions show inconsistencies between the original rendered output of the browsers they claim to support.
• Testing platforms like BrowserLabs, Browsershots, and BrowserCam give you a flattened image of what the site would look like in IE. Not my cup of tea, especially if there is any type of animation, CSS3 or JavaScript. Same goes for Expression Web SuperPreview.
• Browser and Document Modes in IE9 has a number of funky quirks, like providing incorrect user agent strings, and some rendering issues show up when tested against the original browsers.

The Best Way

As stated in a Smashing Magazine article, the best way to achieve accurate results Virtual Machines + IECollection, or remote testing through a third-party service. I won't regurgitate the article here, as I'm sure you can read it for yourself if you wish.

Personally, I've opted for a setup of IE9 in Windows 7 and IE7/8 in Windows XP, both virtual machines mounted in Parallels 7. I've also sublimented these with BrowserStack to fill in any gaps when needed.