// based heavily off:
// https://sites.google.com/a/van-steenbeek.net/archive/explorer_domparser_parsefromstring
if (typeof window.DOMParser === "undefined") {
    window.DOMParser = function() { };

    window.DOMParser.prototype.parseFromString = function(str, contentType) {
        
        if (typeof ActiveXObject !== 'undefined') {
            var xmldata = new ActiveXObject('MSXML.DomDocument');
            xmldata.async = false;
            xmldata.loadXML(str);
            return xmldata;
        } else if (typeof XMLHttpRequest !== 'undefined') {
            var xmldata = new XMLHttpRequest;

            if (!contentType) {
                contentType = 'application/xml';
            }

            xmldata.open('GET', 'data:' + contentType + ';charset=utf-8,' + encodeURIComponent(str), false);

            if (xmldata.overrideMimeType) {
                xmldata.overrideMimeType(contentType);
            }

            xmldata.send(null);
           
            return xmldata.responseXML;
        }
    };
}