The tech world has been of late waxing eloquent about the new Internet Explorer 9 beta and how it will change the Web (as it does not run on Win XP, we are not too sure about that, but that’s another story) with its HTML 5 capabilities. People have also been waiting for the reaction of Microsoft’s browser rivals, Google and Mozilla. Well, we have Google’s answer, or at least a part of it – the company has released a stable version of Google Chrome Frame, a plugin that will enable users to access many of the modern web technologies like HTML 5 or Javascript rendering even while using older versions of Internet Explorer (IE) such as 6, 7 and 8, letting you use a number of Web apps that would otherwise would not work with these “legacy browsers,” the term Google uses to refer to them.
Most of the magic is done by Google Chrome’s own rendering engine which works within IE to make all this happen.
Does this bring the older versions on par with IE9? Not really, but it does enough to make users and developers stay with older versions of IE, as Microsoft attempts to push users towards IE9 in particular, and Windows Vista/7 in general, which will suit Google just fine, especially as it is Chrome’s engine that is playing a key role in all this. Browser wars indeed! Incidentally, if you have not downloaded Google Chrome Frame for your version of IE, get it from here. It’s well worth it. While we are waiting for the next version of Chrome. Your play, Mozilla.
