For the Mac geeks out there

[annathepiper]

I am researching whether it's possible to run multiple versions of Safari on OS X, side by side on the same system, for purposes of being able to broaden the base of browsers we can use to investigate user-reported problems. A quick Google of "multiple versions of Safari" nets me this link; anyone got any experience with the doctored-up versions of Safari hosted there? Alternately, does anyone have any clever suggestions for how I might, say, plunk Safari 2.x down next to Safari 3.x on my test machine and not break anything?

As always, thanks in advance.

Comments

[pstratt.livejournal.com]

Run the Windows version of Safari for the 3.x tests? I don't know how much the Mac and Windows version of Safari differ for the same release.

[annathepiper]

Unfortunately that doesn't actually solve my problem. :) I do actually have Safari 3 running on my PC at work, and at least in theory, that's supposed to behave the same as Safari 3 on the Mac.

But this doesn't address that I'd still need something earlier than Safari 3 for the Mac at work. It's already got Safari 3.0.4 on it, since Safari 3 was pushed onto it by critical updates to the OS. I don't know of any easy way to downgrade the browser; earlier versions were not, last I checked, available on Safari's homepage on apple.com.

[annathepiper]

Yep, I do indeed have MacOffice 2008, and it's acceptable. Word is usable and has less crap involved with it than Word 2003 over on Windows; Excel is also usable, though I miss having ctrl-D as a keyboard shortcut to do cell fills.

Leopard is groovy and I prefer it over Tiger.

[neutronjockey.livejournal.com]

The real question is what madness are you trying to accomplish by geeking out your OS to run multiple instances?

Hmmm?

Mad scientist much lately?

[annathepiper]

Occasionally we get user reports of stuff that's broken on our site, and I like to err on the side of having as wide a range of browsers to test on as possible, see. Even though we only officially support a small number.

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

I haven't tried this, but I've been told repeatedly that macs do very well in just running whatever from multiple locations. Just put it somewhere other than your Applications folder.

[annathepiper]

Sure; I've done this running multiple versions of Netscape.

The more pertinent question here, though, is whether anybody has any experience with the Safari executables on the site I linked to--because I am certainly not going to install them untested on a work machine. Or, any alternate experience with some other source of older versions of Safari. :)