Make Internet Explorer Render Like Chrome with Chrome Frame

Developers, your IE6-related woes are over. Google’s taking the “beta” sticker off a handy line of code that will make older versions of Internet Explorer use Chrome’s Webkit-based rendering engine rather than its own default rendering engine.

This time last year, we told you that GoogleGoogle was working on improving the woeful Internet ExplorerInternet Explorer experience via Chrome Frame, an end-user plugin that brought some of Chrome’sChrome open-web tech and JavaScript engine into Internet Explorer.

For today’s InternetInternet apps history lesson, we highlight the fact that Chrome Frame was created especially for Google WaveGoogle Wave, many aspects of which which wouldn’t render in Internet Explorer otherwise. As you can imagine, this revelation didn’t please Microsoft too much.

At the time, a Microsoft spokesperson stated that running Chrome Frame represented a security risk that “doubled the attach area for malware and malicious scripts. This is not a risk we would recommend our friends and families take.” However, last year’s developer preview of this plugin has become a stable product after months of bug fixes and security patches.

Here’s a brief demo video showing what Chrome Frame could do for the typical IE browsing experience:

The Chrome Frame plugin can be used for Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8. Once the user downloads the plugin, the browser detects the single meta tag added to the site on the developer’s end, and Chrome Frame switches to the Webkit rendering engine.

Another point of note is that Chrome Frame existed long before IE9, which is purportedly more web-standards compliant, more HTML5-ready, and much faster than previous versions of the web’s most infamous browser. Whether IE9 needs or would operate better with Chrome’s Webkit rendering engine is a highly technical and likely emotionally weighted debate we’ll leave to our good friends at Microsoft and Google.

However, what we do know for a fact is that not every IE user is working with the latest version of the browser, and many developers and designers working in the real world have to optimize for (or at least take into consideration) much older, slower versions of Internet Explorer. For these working stiffs, Chrome Frame could be a lifesaver. The onus to install the plugin still lies with end users, but requiring a plugin install is one workaround for the otherwise tedious task of reworking your site for IE6 or — worse yet — leaving your IE6-using customers out in the cold.

What do you think of Chrome Frame? Have you been using it over the past year? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

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