| Google Chrome Frame | |
| Developer: | Google Inc. |
| Discontinued: | yes |
| Operating System: | Microsoft Windows |
| Engine: | WebKit (based on KHTML) |
| Programming Language: | C++ |
| Genre: | Replacement layout engine |
Google Chrome Frame was a plug-in designed for Internet Explorer based on the open-source Chromium project, first announced on September 22, 2009.[1] It went stable in September 2010, on the first birthday of the project.[2] It was discontinued on February 25, 2014 and is no longer supported.[3]
The plug-in worked with Internet Explorer 6, 7, 8 and 9.[3] It allowed suitably coded web pages to be displayed in Internet Explorer by Google Chrome's versions of the WebKit layout engine and V8 JavaScript engine. In a test by Computerworld, JavaScript code ran 10 times faster with the plug-in on Internet Explorer 8.[4]
Development of Google Chrome Frame was required in order for Google Wave (now Apache Wave), which requires HTML5, to function in Internet Explorer.
The first stable version supporting Non-Admin Chrome Frame was rolled out on August 30, 2011. The newer Chrome Frame installer ran at Admin level by default and fell back to Non-Admin mode if the user didn't have the necessary permissions on their machine.[5]
Web developers can allow their websites to use the plug-in by using the following code on their web pages:
In February 2010, Google Chrome Frame was updated to also support deployment by HTTP headers, with a number of advantages, such as simplified sitewide support and support of the application/xhtml+xml MIME type even on Internet Explorer which normally does not support this MIME type for XHTML documents.[6] For a blanket rollout on an entire web site, an Apache server with mod_headers and mod_setenvif enabled can specify a header directive like this:
Internet Explorer add-ons do not function on pages rendered using WebKit. There has been criticism concerning Chrome Frame from Mozilla[7] [8] and Microsoft[9] as Chrome Frame "can disable IE features and muddle users' understanding of Web security matters". With Google Chrome Frame installed, users can add the gcf: prefix to URLs to render them with WebKit and V8 instead of Internet Explorer's built-in Trident engine after enabling this feature via a registry setting. An update also brought the possibility to navigate pages in IE utilising WebKit/V8 without the gcf: prefix:[10]
| Registry key | Value | Function |
|---|---|---|
HKCU\Software\Google\ChromeFrame | AllowUnsafeURLs=1 (DWORD) | By adding the gcf: prefix to the URL in address bar, the page will load rendered with WebKit/V8 |
IsDefaultRenderer=1 (DWORD) | Makes WebKit/V8 the default rendering technique |
Google Chrome Frame communicated with Google's servers: it reported installation to Google, downloaded updates to Chrome Frame and Google's Safe Browsing list, and at the user's discretion could send Google usage statistics and crash reports.[11]