Microsoft has responded to the public flogging that was Google Chrome Frame, with a singular message it’s “not a risk we would recommend our friends and families take.”
For once they’re right! It’s not a risk we’d want anyone from our family to take either. Rather, discard the already outdated Internet Explorer 8, and just use Google Chrome, or some other Read BrowserTM such as Firefox. While you wait for IE9 coming with Windows 8, you’ll probably have seen a Firefox 5, Chrome 20, Opera 11, and Safari 5!
Talking to someone from Ars, a Microsoft spokesperson said, “With Internet Explorer 8, we made significant advancements and updates to make the browser safer for our customers given the security issues with plugins in general and Google Chrome in particular, Google Chrome Frame running as a plugin has doubled the attach area for malware and malicious scripts. This is not a risk we would recommend our friends and families take.”
Of course, with each add-on / plug-in / extension, you increase the vulnerability of the browser to attacks, however this is equally true of their own plug-in Silverlight, let’s see them selling that idea!
While it had a jittery start, Chrome is by far one of the most secure browsers available, especially thanks to it sandbox. Secunia, a website which deals with security vulnerabilities in applications has the following statistics related to IE and Chrome:
| Browser |
Vulnerabilities (Unpatched) |
| Chrome 1 | 6 (1) |
| Chrome 2 | 5 (1) |
| Chrome 3 | 0 (0) |
| IE6 | 139 (22) |
| IE7 | 38 (9) |
| IE8 | 4 (2) |
As Emil Protalinski of Ars points out, even if Chrome is less secure than IE8, the plugin also works on IE6 and IE7 which still have a 50% share, and LOT more exploits!
Of course the reported 10 times boost in speed might be another incentive!
Come one Microsoft! Admit it! You just got slapped in the face, and that isn’t just dust in your eye.
Disclaimer: This interesting article is sourced from thinkdigit.com and originally published in ArsTechnica.
