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Mozilla Slams Chrome Frame As "Browser Soup"
CWmike writes "Mozilla executives today took shots at Google for pitching its Chrome Frame plug-in as a solution to Internet Explorer's poor performance, with one arguing that Google's move will result in 'browser soup.' The Mozilla reaction puts the company that builds Firefox on the same side of the debate as rival Microsoft, which has also blasted Google over the plug-in. Mitchell Baker, the former CEO of Mozilla and currently the chairman of the Mozilla Foundation, said in a blog post, 'The overall effects of Chrome Frame are undesirable. I predict positive results will not be enduring and — and to the extent it is adopted — Chrome Frame will end in growing fragmentation and loss of control for most of us, including Web developers.' Baker says Chrome Frame's browser-in-a-browser will confuse users and render some of their familiar tools useless. 'Once your browser has fragmented into multiple rendering engines, it's very hard to manage information across Web sites. Some information will be manageable from the browser you use and some information from Chrome Frame. This defeats one of the most important ways in which a browser can help people manage their [Web] experience.'"
Baker says Chrome Frame's browser-in-a-browser will confuse users and render some of their familiar tools useless. Some information will be manageable from the browser you use and some information from Chrome Frame.
Interestingly, isn't this an exactly same issue with Firefox addons too? Some of them might create the same kind of incompabilities than Chrome Frame plugin does.
On that note, in my opinion Chrome Frame itself serve's little to none purpose. If you can install it, you could install the actual Chrome (or some other) browser aswell. Websites need to opt-in for using the Chrome Frame for rendering with a metatag, and I think Google will be lucky if even 1% add that tag.
Only good reason I've come across is the next note from the article
Specifically, said Google, it was pushing Chrome Frame because it decided it wasn't worth trying to make its new collaboration and communications tool, Google Wave, work with IE. Google developers spent "countless hours" on tweaking Wave for IE, but gave up.
Which does make sense. Users can use IE, but still get the Wave to work. But I except google to take more major approach about the plugin soon.
Google is simply "embracing and extending" IE's functionality, right?
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A very important point. Those of us who build the web finally thought we were seeing some movement with the increasing adoption of Firefox (mainly) causing Microsoft to build better browsers in IE7, and more so, IE8. We really looked forward to moving from a development model where 50% of the time was spent building the site to standards, and 50% hacking for Internet Explorer.
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Translation: Those fucking bastards are probably going to do the same thing to Firefox!!!! Chair... Google... Must... throw...
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Sounds like sour grapes to me. Google has a technically superior engine, and Mozilla's whining about it. Well boo-hoo guys, how about cutting the crap and getting to work improving your product?
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IE8 doesn't support canvas, or svg, doesn't have a real javascript engine, and still mangles standard css.
It can get by on simple web pages, but it's simply not suitable for real web apps. Anyone developing one either writes off IE completely, or is using the tools that Google's been releasing to augment IE's deficiencies.
... because I love and use it daily. But isn't Firefox 'plug-in soup'? Updates frequently breaking plugins, plugins sometimes breaking the browser, etc.
Seems silly to me for them to make a comment like this.
More options are good. There are many users who are forced to keep IE6 for work access to intranet sites and yet may want Google wave for personal use. This way they can access all their sites without having to remember which browser is for which and deal with different sets of bookmarks and cookies. What alternatives do Microsoft and Mozilla foundation propose for this group of people?
Urgh, I hate these links to useless tech news websites, rather than the original sources. To see what the Mozilla executives in question actually had to say, with their words in context, read Mitchell Baker: Browser Soup and Chrome Frame and Mike Shaver: thoughts on chrome frame.
And as a bonus, from a Mozilla-technology using developer (I don't think he's affiliated with Mozilla in any official capacity anymore) Daniel Glazman: Google Chrome Frame.
Oh boy. Here we go.
Mozilla drags IE into the future with Canvas element plugin
Granted, Mozilla's technology doesn't do as much as Chrome Frame. It does less. But it introduced tag soup into IE. One can now, according to Mozilla's own damn hypocritic opinion because of a technological big brother envy, be sure of how IE render content.
"Once your browser has fragmented into multiple rendering engines, it's very hard to manage information across Web sites" - Mozilla
Oh, and how does adding canvas support reduce confusion when even more complete HTML 5 support won't?
But read on guys... It get funnier.
Ars Technica:
This Canvas plugin is only the first step toward bringing standards-based web technologies to Internet Explorer. Mozilla is working on a much more ambitious initiative called Screaming Monkey that will make it possible to plug Mozilla's entire next-generation JavaScript engine directly into Microsoft's web browser. If these plugins gain widespread acceptance, it will empower web developers and give them the ability to target web standards and not have to compensate as much for Internet Explorer's broken behavior.
Hahaha! I love this! Thanks for the laugh, Mozilla!
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Dudes... I work at a company whose standard is IE6. Not IE7, not IE8. IE6. And IE6 isn't even compatible with IE8 in some cases.
The reason Google is releasing Chrome Frame is very simple--so that they can get Google Wave in the door of enterprises who have standardized on IE (including IE6) without having to develop 4 different versions of it (Standards Compliant, IE6, IE7, and IE8). They decided that doing Chrome Frame was easier, cheaper, and better for the future of Google Apps (broadly construed to include Wave) than continuing to pander to IE.
I don't think they want to "enable" IE users... but they'd rather enable IE users to continue to be stupid than cripple their applications as they've been doing ever since gmail came out. From Google's point of view, this is ALL about the apps, not the browser wars.
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Who said soup is a bad thing? I like soup, damn it!
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Odd - I have for the past few years always used the "IE Tab" plugin for Firefox - that makes the pages render in IE (for IE specific sites, like windows update). Isn't that EXACTLY the same thing?
I've been thinking about Google Frame. Honestly, I think it's too good a stopgap. Let me explain:
People have Internet Explorer. It sucks. Or people have Chrome/Firefox/Opera/Safari/... and they all work the same (almost).
People who have IE are mostly unable or unwilling to install, well, anything else.
Chrome is good in that installing a browser plugin is easier (and more familiar) for most people than installing a browser. They do it all the time - Flash, Java, SuperPornSearch - even if they shouldn't.
So Chrome Frame is nice, in that regard, in that I as a web developer can have IE say "install this to view this page", or otherwise throw up a "You must have at least Flash 7 to view this content"-type page. Those errors seem to be effective, for the most part.
But it's bad in the sense that if everybody requires Chrome Frame, and everybody has it, that's dandy. But it's still running IE.
In short, it's a stopgap. But it's a very good stopgap. Potentially so good that people won't switch to a real browser. And that's bad.
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And not a moment too soon, because Flash sucks ass.
The only thing I use it for is embedding video. Groovy menus? AJAX and CSS. Flash was a great idea when we all had dial up. We've moved on from there, and we all learned not to build flash based splash pages. This makes Flash a fairly useless application. I look forward to it dying, like its bloated predecessor, Director.
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Shit is constantly broken in Lynx! Images still don't show up right without hacks! WTF is up with that!? And forget about Flash. Adobe hates Lynx.
Anyone developing one either writes off IE completely, or is using the tools that Google's been releasing to augment IE's deficiencies.
Really, those are our 2 options? Either don't support IE, or use something from Google. Oddly enough, I've been getting by for years without doing either of those. Granted, my "real web apps" don't need canvas or SVG. The vast majority of mature Javascript libraries around have no problems supporting IE with the vast majority of their functionality, what's your excuse? I've been supporting tens of thousands of corporate (read IE) users who spend hours each day using large ajax applications that I've built. I've got an installation with over 70,000 users on it where about 1% of the front-end code is HTML, and the rest is Javascript and CSS. IE8 runs that application just fine.
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