Chrome Frame plug-in for Firefox from Google
By siliconindia   |   Friday, 02 October 2009, 22:43 IST
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Chrome Frame plug-in for Firefox from Google
Bangalore: After releasing a plug-in for Internet Explorer, Google is likely to produce a Chrome Frame plug-in for Firefox. Mike Shaver, Mozilla's Vice president of Engineering, referring to parts of the Chrome Frame source code said that "The code is certainly there. But source code doesn't speak to intent." Chrome Frame, which was launched on September 23, currently only supports IE6, IE7 and IE8, and lets those Microsoft browsers utilize the Chrome browser's WebKit rendering engine, as well as its V8 JavaScript engine. Google pitched the plug-in as a way to instantly boost the speed of the notoriously slow IE and as a means for Web developers to support standards IE can't handle, including HTML 5. Google said that it created Chrome Frame because it wasn't worth the time and trouble to make its new collaboration and communications tool, Google Wave, work with IE. Google developers claimed they spent 'countless hours' tweaking Wave for IE, but gave up in favor of producing a plug-in instead. Shaver said, "Chrome Frame, which is open source, includes technologies that could be destined for Firefox as well as Opera Software's Opera browser." Mozilla staked out its position on Chrome Frame, when both Shaver and Mitchell Baker, the former CEO of Mozilla and current Chairman of the Mozilla Foundation, took swipes at Google for releasing the plug-in. Both Shaver and Baker termed the plug-in a bad idea with Baker arguing that it would confuse readers over which browser was rendering a site, divide personal details like site passwords and browsing history between two applications and cede control over users' browsing experience to site designers. Shaver acknowledged that some of Mozilla's motivation for taking Chrome Frame to the woodshed was in its own interest. "We started to get some inbound from our community about Chrome Frame, and the more we did, the more we decided that we'd rather have people using Chrome the browser rather than Chrome Frame," added Shaver.

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