Weblog

Posted at 1:36pm on 23 Sep 2009

If it's Broke, Fix it

So this is amusing: http://code.google.com/chrome/chromeframe

Google have released a plugin for Internet Explorer that lets it render web pages using Webkit, the HTML engine used by Safari and Google's own Chrome browser. It's kind of like the final fuck you to Microsoft's consistently poor efforts at keeping their browser up to date with modern standards.

As amusing as this is, it doesn't really impact anyone though. Users who actually like IE (yeah, all five of you. You know who you are) aren't going to install it, and all other IE users either don’t know how to install plugins or don’t have admin rights, so I can't see that this is going to get much uptake.

Unless the idea is that Google are going to push IE users to install it with a "This page requires Google plugin, click here to download" message on the Gmail page or something, but I can't see them doing that just yet – it would pretty much be the last nail in the don't be evil coffin, even if it is for people's own good.

Now if Adobe ever bundle webkit with Flash, then we'll talk. Seems like a natural step for them given that it's already part of the Air runtime, but I imagine they’re too afraid of the big M to ever do something so cheeky.