Google hits back at Microsoft Frame slur

By V3.co.uk staff on Sep 26, 2009 7:08 AM
Filed under Software

Chrome more secure than Internet Explorer.

Google has hit back after Microsoft suggested its Chrome Frame plug-in would render IE8 less secure.

In a statement, Google not only rubbished Microsoft's comments but also ridiculed the Redmond giant's web browsers for being out of date and unstable.

Google said that Chrome Frame is still an early version but is designed to tackle both speed and security issues inherent in out-of-date and non-standards-compliant browsers like Internet Explorer.

It said, "While we encourage users to use a more modern and standards compliant browser such as Firefox, Safari, Opera or Google Chrome rather than a plug-in, for those who don't, Google Chrome Frame is designed to provide better performance, strong security features, and more choice to both developers and users, across all versions of Internet Explorer."

Just in case Microsoft and its users didn't get the message, Google continued to take the security high ground, adding, "Accessing sites using Google Chrome Frame brings Google Chrome's security features to Internet Explorer users, providing strong phishing and malware protection (absent in IE6), robust sandboxing technology, and defenses from emerging online threats that are available in days rather than months."

Google hits back at Microsoft Frame slur

9 comments in this discussion

"cootified wrote: as for other people, know what your talking about before providing input Come on cooti, what are you trying to do? Shut the forum down? ;-)"

By Slatts

Tags

chrome, frame, google, internet, microsoft, security

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Comments: 9

Ian_M Sep 26, 2009 1:54 PM	Why do some company's spend their time comparing to competitors long upgraded legacy software? If it wasn't enough to have Apple fan's comparing Windows XP to Snow Leopard to provide themselves a self satisfied glow, now we have Google Chrome improving the security experience of IE6. Why? Have they not heard of Windows 7 or IE8? That Microsoft needs to continuously improve both products is a given. But these comments are about as useful as telling me that my 40 year old Astor B&W television can't compete with Sony's HD colour!!
Slatts Sep 26, 2009 4:43 PM	You might be surprised / horrified how many people still suffer from the disease known as ie6. As an exercise, go into the forums section and click on "active users" down the bottom and see what browsers are being used by visitors. Still, if the punters don't know enough to dump ie6, they're unlikely to know enough to load the chrome plug in.
Jahm Mitt Sep 26, 2009 7:27 PM	Haaa people who use MS crapfest - well that's good, keeps the idiots out of the linux platform.
john34s Sep 26, 2009 7:29 PM	Well, I am one of those who still use IE6 when I must use it, by preference I use Opera - much cleaner and more reliable. I have IE7 on my wifes PC and hate it with a vengence. And also I still use XP, and will for as long as I can. I still haven't seen anything provided with W7 or IE8 to make me want to shell out more money to Microsoft for no benefit. Remember what a "great" product Vista was, and how MS forced us to pay to get from it back to good (old) reliable XP. Another reason for sticking with these is I don't have to upgrade my other software suites so thaey will run on the latest ... which based on Microsofts recent track record could still turn out to be lemons.
Slatts Sep 27, 2009 8:33 AM	Jahm Mitt wrote: Haaa people who use MS crapfest - well that's good, keeps the idiots out of the linux platform. Gee Jahm, I feel the need to bow down to your l337ness. It doesn't seem to have worked for you though. Hi john, I think you'll find ie7 and 8 will open anything ie6 will and are much more secure. I'm running ie8 on XP and would recomend that you and anyone else using IE upgrade to it. (assuming you're using an OS that supports it.) My main browser of choice is Firefox 3.5. The machine I'm on as I write this is dual booted with XP pro and win7 RC. It's an old Athalon 64 3200+ system with 1.5Gig of ram in it and if anything win 7 seems faster on it. That said, I won't be forking out for a full win 7 licence for it. When I go to win 7 it'll be on a new machine. Cheers.
Slatts Sep 27, 2009 2:51 PM	active user list wrote: Active Users User Name Logged In Last Active Active Browser Platform Slatts 14:43:44 14:44:05 1 minutes Firefox 3.5.3 WinXP Guest 14:41:56 14:41:56 0 minutes Mozilla 5.0 Unknown Guest 14:40:58 14:40:58 0 minutes Mozilla 5.0 Unknown Guest 14:40:49 14:40:49 0 minutes Firefox 1.5.0.1 WinXP Guest 14:39:07 14:39:07 0 minutes Unknown 0.0 Unknown Guest 14:39:03 14:39:03 0 minutes Unknown 0.0 Unknown Have a look what the 3rd guest is running. Firefox 1.5.0.1! Come on guest No 3! That's just lazy. Get with the program cobber.
funkyg Sep 28, 2009 8:52 AM	I see this as Google really giving us a creative way to solve a huge problem in the industry. Firstly I should explain my perspective and give a little history, so please excuse the long post. My perspective is that I currently work in this field optimising the user experience and doing some design and coding. I therefore have a good understanding of both the technical issues and the problems on the user side of things. Now for the history. IE6 is now the oldest browser in common use by far. It was a product of the times when MS had just won the first 'browser war' against Netscape and was the dominant force with probably 90%+ of the browser market. Because of this market dominance they started adding 'features' that weren't part of the HTML and CSS standards that were available at the time. These included things such as using a different definition for the margin-border-padding, the 'has-layout' bug, and allowing direct access to the computer through activeX. All these features were designed with particular cases in mind but have since caused massive problems in the industry. In particular you can see why direct access to the computer is an ideal way for hackers to get into your system and take it over. So having said that, why is IE6 still around, and what are the problems with subsequent version of IE? Well the problem has been, and still is that IE was the dominant browser for many years and corporation developed internal application designed to function with the things we now know are not a good idea. Essentially these corporation are now stuck between a rock and a hard place. Running an insecure browser or breaking their internal systems. IE7 and IE8 have been Microsofts attempt to gradually improve their browser without breaking too much, but that has been a problem too. By not breaking too much they still support features which just don't comply with industry standards. I have just comes across this problem in particular when a site working perfectly in Firefox, Safari, Chrome etc was totally broken in IE taking me a significant amount of time to 'fix'. I won't even mention that IE, because of it's very long development cycle is usually well behind on support for the latest standards such as CSS3 and HTML5, which have come through into many of the other major browsers. So that is the story from the web designers perspective, but what about from the user. Well that is a problem too. Most designers work by testing in a standards compliant browser (typically Firefox), then fix for IE and other browsers. We often use what is called 'progressive enhancement' or 'graceful degradation', which means that browsers not supporting features of the design, still work, but the user experience is not so rich. For example an IE6 user may have to go through 3 navigation steps instead of 1 to get to an item. What this means is that the user has more chance of being frustrated and not getting the content they want, and the website owner has less chance of giving them the slick experience they want and therefore less chance of converting them to a customer. In short the current situation is bad for users, site owners and web designers. What Google has done is give us a solution where, with a simple addition to the browser and the site code we can make all this work even in IE6. Although IT departments may still be slow to take this up it is even good for them as it will allow modern browser features (which they have to move to in the end), more security while still running their legacy applications. Good for everyone! This in short is a great workable solution to a huge industry problem. Well done Google!
cootified Sep 28, 2009 5:11 PM	I totally agree with the last comment. Well done Google! as for other people, know what your talking about before providing input.
Slatts Sep 28, 2009 6:17 PM	cootified wrote: as for other people, know what your talking about before providing input Come on cooti, what are you trying to do? Shut the forum down? ;-)