Internet Explorer 5.2 Adds Quartz Text Smoothing -- Microsoft today released Internet Explorer 5.2 for Mac OS X (5.1.4 remains the current version for previous versions of the Mac OS). There's only one new feature in Internet Explorer 5.2 - support for Quartz-based text smoothing for users of Mac OS X 10.1.5. Whether you like text smoothing can depend on your monitor, your font choice, and your eyes; those who don't like it can turn it off in the Interface Extras pane of Internet Explorer's Preferences window. The only other change is that Internet Explorer rudely resets your home page to MSN, no matter how it was previously set. Also annoying is the installer, which quits all running applications before installing, something which is generally unnecessary and exceedingly uncommon in Mac OS X. I have enough utilities set to launch at login that it was easier to restart the Mac than to find and relaunch each one individually. Lastly, it's odd that this update wasn't available via Software Update like all the previous ones. Could this release, along with Apple's announcement of iChat's compatibility with AOL Instant Messenger, indicate a rift between Apple and Microsoft? And might it also foreshadow the release of a Web browser from Apple to complement the rest of the iApps? [ACE]

<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/ie/>
<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/DOWNLOAD/IE/ ie52.asp>