First, the Microsoft browser these days is Edge, not IE. IE is dead.
Second, if you want, or wanted in the past, to test on Internet Explorer without a Windows computer, you could just virtualize Windows. Windows can be legally virtualized on any hardware and on any host operating system.
Starting from 2013, you didn’t even need to pay for a Windows license to do that:
Are seriously asking with a straight face? Just do what a generation of people have done with Windows and run an unlicensed version of macOS. There's a whole generation of people who can recite Windows product keys off by heart. (FCKGW, anyone?) Entire empires of indie web development will have been done on improperly licensed versions of Windows.
As for people working in a serious professional corporation that cannot condone casual piracy, buy a Mac mini and expense it, or get an account on MacStadium.
The owner of whirlpool.net.au commenting on my comment.
I am replying because of the huge respect I have for the work.
Yes, I am seriously asking with a straight face.
Yes, I know how to pirate. I’m from this planet. :-D
Pirating, and jumping through hoops to do things certain vendors didn’t want done, was fun while I was learning. And educational. Super educational, in many respects.
But it is not fun anymore for me. There are other things these days that can get me banging my head against walls, and they are, in total, more fun and more educational.
My point is only that testing on any non-free platform involves jumping through non-free or non-legal hoops. Testing on a variety of platforms/clients shouldn't be considered a chore. It's a necessary part of having a truly open, truly free web. Don't complain that you have to buy an Apple device. Say thank you. Seriously.
Diversity — not choice — is what keeps the web truly open and truly free. Enforced diversity sometimes sucks for the individual but necessary for the healt of the ecosystem. The "choice" of Chromium everywhere isn't a choice, it's forcing everyone into a monoculture. When everyone is expected to use one browser engine, the open web is dead.
Because it cannot run Chromium, Safari on iPhone is the last refuge of the truly open and truly free web. Steve Jobs might be known for many things, but I think he's under-appreciated as a two-time saviour of the web; first by destroying Adobe Flash[0], and second by ensuring that one web browser couldn't dominate on all platforms.
[0] To this day I am utterly stunned that anyone in a community like Hacker News would think it acceptable that a significant chunk of the web was under the thumb of a proprietary, closed source binary blob. The death of Flash was necessary, righteous, and overdue.
First, the Microsoft browser these days is Edge, not IE. IE is dead.
Second, if you want, or wanted in the past, to test on Internet Explorer without a Windows computer, you could just virtualize Windows. Windows can be legally virtualized on any hardware and on any host operating system.
Starting from 2013, you didn’t even need to pay for a Windows license to do that:
https://archive.org/details/modern.ie-vm