Google Chrome Frame is an open-source plugin that adds HTML5, Canvas, a fast JavaScript engine and more to Internet Explorer; in fact it just swaps out Trident with Webkit! Developers can opt-in to the feature on their sites via a meta-tag / HTTP-header and prompt users to install Google Chrome Frame if they don’t have it. Update: Correction, they don’t support the HTTP Header.
It would be an understatement to say that developers are fed up with Internet Explorer. It has been dragging its heels for so long that developers are wasting time debugging just for IE’s quirks, not least having to leave out targeting modern features like HTML5 audio / video and high speed parallel processing in JavaScript.
Google Chrome Frame basically embeds Chrome’s webkit engine into IE (6/7/8), replacing Trident. However, this is not a flat out replacement, but rather an opt-in experience that web-developers can choose for their site by adding a simple meta tag in their HTML. The Developer’s Documentation describes this.
Developers can then use JavaScript to prompt the user to install Google Chrome Frame, and once installed all sites that opt-in to the feature instantly get a standards-compliant, cutting-edge HTML engine!
Last week, I said that the only way Microsoft could stop the marketshare IE is haemorrhaging would be to replace the Trident engine with Webkit! It looks like Google is jumping the gun and taking direct action to address the poor state of IE and bring it up to a respectable level
Of course, this isn’t going to apply to all users of IE, but it is a nice gesture that allows even IE users to experience what’s possible with a modern rendering engine and features. If Google wanted to push Google Chrome Frame (and webstandards as a whole) they could install Google Chrome Frame as part of other Google Software; they’re already installing Chrome without asking anyway! 😛
Frankly, it‘s sad that IE is so behind the times that developers have to adopt this rather extreme method, but if it drives the adoption of HTML5 and helps lessen Adobe Flash’s (and IE’s) grip on the Internet, then all the better.
This is still an early release and there are a number of remaining issues.
Damn… Now that is some subversive stuff. I think the gauntlet has just been thrown down.
Remember the days when you would go to a site, and virtually every one of them would proudly display “Made for {Netscape / IE}” or “Works best with {Netscape / IE}”? Aside from those companies that are afraid to look bad or lose advertising money by not supporting IE, why don’t more sites do this? If someone wants to view a site bad enough, they get a better browser that will actually, you know, be able to render it properly.
And don’t mention people won’t know how to do it; it’s not that damn hard, and surely just about everyone knows someone else who knows how to do the task if they’re really that dumb and refuse to learn something.
It’s not 100% about Web browser competition like it was back in the IE vs. Netscape days; it’s about standards that everyone should be using (that’s what they’re there for) vs. a monopolistic company whose products reek of poor decisions that purposefully make it incompatible with everything else, brought on by their desire to control the Web (just like everything else they “compete” in).
Edited 2009-09-22 20:08 UTC
Great ideas in principle, but many of us have jobs that mandate that I.E. be used. There is no choice at all. Hence, if I am a web developer, I would still have to support I.E., since it is still over 50% of all users. Telling people to “bug off” if they won’t download and install another browser is just rude and simplistic. Most sites cannot afford to lose 1/2 of the possible customers.
Unfortunately, Chrome Frame will do no good for most corporate users, since they are locked in by the Microsoft-loving corporated powers-that-be. Plugins cannot be downloaded and installed at will.
Fortunately, I think the trend will change eventually. I can’t think of a worse combination – Windows, MS Office and Internet Explorer. And yet millions are forced to use that unholy trinity.
Someday it will change. Considering the billions that get poured down the rathole yearly for the fun and adventure of Windows malware, I believe the old line of “but it’s all our lil’ I.T. folks can handle” will seem increasing weak. Unfortunately, based on my recent experiences in a C.S. program, the M.S. way is still the only way being taught at most schools. I took an Operating Systems class. For our two assignments, we had to write a couple Win32 apps. M.S. has managed to numb many of the minds of our faculty in schools. Many are just learning to fill out dialogs and hit OK. C.S. programs are turning out Computer Operators, not Computer Scientists.
But I digress..
I take issue with the Microsoft loving powers that be statement. As a network administrator for a business I’m not a Microsoft loving person (more like hating), but as it stands many of the Government websites we have to use are IE only. I also have an internal program that requires IE. The program itself is really good, but the IE requirement sucks and I’ve told them that much.
Another factor for us corporate types is that we like to control the entire network from our desktop. I can do this with IE and to some extent Firefox. Not something I see from many of the other browsers. Well not technically from Mozilla. It’s a third party that does that.
My point was not that the I.T. folks in all departments are MS-loving folks. The powers-that-be are NOT the I.T. folks. Instead, they are goverment officials, corporate managers, etc. Many of the I.T. people I know are not too happy with the restrictions, but THEY HAVE NO POWER in this area. They have to follow the company policy, which is often very brain-dead, because it’s “easier” that way.
On the other hand, I’ve also worked in I.T. departments where most of the “dudes” and “dudettes” were really just dialog clickers. Click next, next, fill a few boxes, and click OK. These folks will always be more comfortable in a mono-culture. I must admit, it is much easier to work in an all-Microsoft shop. When the question arises, “What web server do we use”, there is only one answer. When the question arises about Email Server, DNS, Content Management System, Proxy Server, IDE, etc, etc, etc, there is usually that one Microsoft choice. The only “drama” is waiting for Microsoft to release new products or new versions of existing products.
It’s funny, I once worked in an I.T. department where the boss was an ex-Microsoft manager. Suddenly all our systems were replaced with Microsoft solutions. He had the gall to say he wasn’t a Microsoft dude, but that Microsoft’s solutions just happened to win out every category. It was probably 8 different products that were chosen for 8 of our core functions. What a coincidence! That’s what I mean by the numbing of I.T. minds in schools and businesses.
I’ve never worked at a place where management told me I had to run Microsoft products. Probably because when they start I just tell them that if they would prefer to do my job I will simply step aside and let them.
Now that said I’m also not one of these idiots who tell grumbles and complains every time Microsoft is mentioned. I do whats best to suit the needs of the business I work for. I leave my personal feelings and agendas at the door.
Just for the record I don’t take offense at what you said. I merely wanted to give another side because even my experience isn’t shared by all.
None of these considerations would prevent you, as a network administartor, from installing the Google Chome Frame plugin for IE on all of the machines on your network. It won’t intefere with their operation on IE only sites, but it will allow all your machines to correctly render W3C-compliant sites (unlike IE alone can do).
Google Chome Frame will let you retain IE on all your machines, keep compliance with those websites and applications that you mention, yet still give you a browser for all your users that can get 100/100 on acid3 complaince tests.
Where is the downside for you to install Google Chome Frame for your users?
Consider this then. Every piece of software you add to a computer adds another potential door for hackers to get through. While I have considerably more trust in Google’s code than I do Microsoft’s I’m still not going to load it up on every computer just so they can render the Acid 3 test correctly. Until some real benefit pops up I’m not going to install it at all. We restrict web access here anyways so probably the sites they want to see are blocked to begin with.
That does not happen. Choice of browser is a very personal thing. People don’t change their browser just because someone tells them to, anymore than they would get a radical new haircut. They might if they were already thinking about it anyway, but not otherwise.
What do you think telling people “get a better haircut if you come here” would do for your business? Yeah, I know, there’s a good technological reason for asking them that. Except that’s not how they see it. They see it as a personal attack against their preferences. And, as said above, you can’t afford to piss off your visitors, especially if you’re an online store.
Besides, it’s unprofessional. Part of the job of a web designer is to find solutions that will allow the site to be experienced properly by a majority of the visitors out there. It’s possible, albeit tedious. Whenever I see a site saying “best viewed with…” I know someone decided “the hell with it, let’s just take the easy way out”.
as mad as MS could get I can see them pulling one of these:
MS: “wow thats neat, and to think if Google hadn’t gone and done thing for free we would have had to invet all that money for making internet explorer 9. Oh man, here’s the best part, the users are still going ot be using internet explorer! We should send google a cake or something, boy does this save us a lot of money and time while retaining market share. You think they would want a chocolcate or vanilla cake?”
Ohhhhh. MS has just been served.
Laughed… My… Ass… Off!
… but it seems a bit wrong to have this plugin activate purely on a meta tag or http header. I think there ought to be an option for the user to choose if he wants to use this plugin on the page.
The absence of that ability is what makes this so clever… Think about it. The meta tag is essentially acting as a mime type would for a normal plugin – this Google frame thing is a plugin designed to handle a specific file “type”. The fact that the plugin is triggered by a meta tag instead of a file extension is just an implementation detail, the intent and result is the same.
So it does what all plugins do – it handles files for which the browser has no native mechanism to handle. Its not like you as a user can decide that you should use Flash to render osnews.com – you can’t because osnews isn’t a flash site, and flash wouldnt work. What you want doesn’t factor into that at all. The author of the content decides when implementing it whether or not flash will be needed, by choosing to implement in using flash.
The point is an author who decides to implement a site
using this has already determined that, for whatever reason, his content cannot be handled by IE properly – so this gives them a mechanism to support IE without having to deal with its inadequacies. There is no real reason to give the user control over this. After all, if they wanted Chrome to render all their web pages they would just run Chrome…
I was hoping of an enhanced version of IE7.
http://dean.edwards.name/IE7/
And what does Google Frame do if the webpage it is rendering uses Flash? Does it make use of the IE Flash plugin, or does it require a separately installed Flash plugin for Chrome Frame?…
I could see this getting pretty funky for the end users and developers.
Just tried it with Youtube. Works fine.
To force use of the rendering engine to test it out on a page, append “cf:” to the front of the URL.
For instance:
http://www.osnews.com
forced to render using the plugin would be
cf:http://www.osnews.com
Didn’t know you could do that. Nice way for them to handle that – the user can _try_ and use the plugin whenever they want, but links and such will never use the plugin unless the meta tag tells them to. Everybody is happy
ps. I have to say also: I just LOVE the fact that they are subverting the X-UA-Compatible meta tag for this. Hell, I don’t even know if you can call it subverting – because they are actually using that tag exactly as it is intended to be used. Its just that I highly doubt MS thought anyone would do anything like this with it when they put it in their browser. Oh, the irony…
That should be “prefix the URL with cf:” or “prepend cf: to the URL”. “Append” always happens at the end, never at the front.
“Just tried it with Youtube. Works fine. ”
Youtube no longer uses flash. It switched to QuickTime/MPEG4
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0MWK/is_n7_v12/ai_20331478/
It does use Flash to present the video. Quicktime/mpeg4 are in the backend, flash is used as a “render” for it, user do not need quicktime plugin (hence I would noe be able to see videos in linux), but does need a flash one.
True for the back end. The presentation layer is still flash. Without flash installed, Youtube will not display anything, and will say you need the flash plugin.
Does this work?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjW0Bchdj-w
LOL, I had made this request a few times, in a few places (like ajaxian) recently, and then google went and released it! Thanks for the excellent customer support Google! LOL.
Just playing around, but this is hilariously appropriate – there’s no other way to fight a company that has a strategic disinterest in helping build functional cross platform standards, and sits on the entire industry, spending our money, on position alone.
Now to run the campaign to get the IE6 holdouts to install this – I think they need the ActiveX popup trigger personally, as well as the network packs (or whatever Windows IT uses for updates).
From what I can tell, there is a large majority of users who use internet explorer because they have no option – it is what is provided by their place of work/education.
I would hazard a guess that these users will also not have the freedom to install a plugin, so while this thing has geek value, I do not think it will actually accomplish much.
Yeah, I don’t think this plugin has any use for people who use IE at work because we have to, since the corporate intranet is IE-only.
You would think that most people use IE either because they want to or they have to. But a large majority don’t know what the hell they’re using (the same individuals who will tell you that they’re using Windows 97), so if you could get them to install this plugin, they’d probably never know the difference.
Why wouldn’t the corporation install it?
Trident would still automatically be used on corporate sites.
Google’s Chrome Frame would automatically be used on sites which wanted to deliver standards-compliant rich content. This is much safer for the corporation becuase it uses webkit and not the insecure trident.
Everybody wins … except of course Microsoft’s interest in controlling and constraining users.
Edited 2009-09-22 23:05 UTC
Well said. Check mate I believe.
From a corporate standpoint I would say this is a win and this plugin would be on the list of mandatory plugins to have. I can see no reason at all why they would not install this. Being in IT, I would and will definitely push for this, once I find a new job anyway.
It seems that way to me too. Corporations won’t lose any capability (say in IE6) by installing this, yet they would finally gain web standards compliance for sites that need it.
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/09/google-brings-chrom…
Does logmein.com works?
If not, forget it.
“This new Internet Explorer update makes my websites feel fast! What do you mean, I should switch to Chrome?”
Why is that a problem? It can only be a problem if all you look at is browser share. Google really will not care too much, as the main focus of this was to make sure some of the new apps like Google Wave work properly, so people use it. Which means Google will do what they do best as a company, which is make money. That is what they really care about.
Not only that, but this is one of those rare and happy instances when the best interests of a large company (Google in this case) happen to align with the best interests of regular people (universal, not platform-specific or browser-specific, web standards), and they ALSO happen to align with a lot of other business interests (specifically, web developers and web content providers).
I’m really struggling to see any problem at all here.
Perhaps Google might even include a Theora decoder to go with the HTML5, with any luck.
Edited 2009-09-23 02:47 UTC
I always liked IE’s interface. That coupled with WebKit is a great combination for me.
I added a key in the registry to have everything rendered by WebKit and so far it works good enough. I had some trouble at first (it wanted to use Trident), and GMail is not rendering properly, but otherwise it seems to do the job. And it has inline spell checking 🙂
Thanks, Google!
This is the problem:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/corporatenews/2009-07-24-…
Google Chrome Frame could be a better solution. Instead of offering competitors products as an alternative to IE on install, Microsoft could just make the IE version that they bundle with Windows standards compliant by including the Google Chrome Frame plugin.
Doing that would completely address the original complaint made against IE in the first place. It is a far better solution (for users and for web developers) than offering users a choice of a non-compliant IE or a number of compliant but not-supported-by-Microsoft-only-stuff browsers.
I guess that Microsoft needs to hire Google for Microsoft’s Search Engine. Google took a big of Microsoft’s market share in many products.
http://www.OnlyJust.net