Google announced today that it is retiring Chrome Frame, its way of “chrome-ifying Internet Explorer”. It was a way to let developers get around the not-modern-enough IE of 2009. The plug-in left beta in 2011.
Apparently Google considers Microsoft’s browser to be modern enough now so that there is no longer a need for Chrome Frame.
In a post on Google’s Chromium blog, Chrome engineer Robert Shield writes:
The main goal of the Chromium project has always been to help unlock the potential of the open web. We work closely with the industry to standardize, implement and evangelize web technologies that help enable completely new types of experiences, and push the leading edge of the web platform forward.
But in 2009, many people were using browsers that lagged behind the leading edge. In order to reach the broadest base of users, developers often had to either build multiple versions of their applications or not use the new capabilities at all. We created Chrome Frame — a secure plug-in that brings a modern engine to old versions of Internet Explorer — to allow developers to bring better experiences to more users, even those who were unable to move to a more capable browser.
Google says that today most people are using modern browsers that support the latest web technologies, hence, the need for Chrome Frame has essentially evaporated.
Google will stop supporting and updating the product in January.