Google Calls Time on Its Microsoft Browser

Photo illustration: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Google is retiring its Microsoft browser.

More than three and half years have passed since Google took the bold step of offering a software “plug-in” that could equip Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browsers with the engine at the heart of Google’s very own Chrome browser — a kind of escape hatch for people stuck with the slow, insecure, and limited engines offered by aging browsers like Internet Explorer 6 and 7. And now, the Mountain View tech giant believes the browser landscape as evolved to the point where this plug-in, known as Chrome Frame, is no longer necessary.

According to Alex Russell — who came to Google specifically to start the Chrome Frame project — the plug-in will officially be retired early in 2014, and the company is beginning to warn the consumers and businesses who use the tool. “We’ve gotten to the point now where the trend lines indicate the need for Chrome Frame is going to expire early next year, so we’re giving consumers and enterprises a lot of heads up that Chrome Frame is going to be going away,” he says.

What he means is that the number of people still using IE6 and IE7 has shrunk to the point where Chrome Frame is no longer needed.

In 2009, when Chrome Frame launched, IE6 and IE7 were still used by vast swaths of the web, in large part because many businesses were still requiring employees to run these ancient browsers in tandem with applications built specifically for them. The problem was that these older browsers weren’t equipped to run newer web applications — such as Google’s suite of online business applications, Google Apps — and Chrome Frame provided a (temporary) solution.

As recently as 2011, according to rough numbers from online research outfit Stat Owl, IE7 was still the second most popular browser on the market (at 27.56 percent) and IE6 was third (at 6.43 percent). But Russell believes these numbers have now dwindled to the point where Chrome Frame is no longer needed.

“Thankfully, there are not that many people still using it,” he says.

Google won’t actually remove the plug-in from user machines, but beginning early next year, it will sending warning that they’re running outdated software. Like any other modern browser, Chrome Frame is constantly improved and updated, and this will no longer be the case after the new year.

As usual, Google declined to say how many people are using Chrome Frame — or have used it in the past. But there was a time where the plug-in at least played a small role in pushing the browser world forward. In late 2011, parts of the big name financial house Morgan Stanley were still using IE7, and Aurelije Zovko, a Morgan Stanley executive director who handles IT duties for the New York-based company, told us that he was testing and exploring the use of Chrome Frame.

Though Chrome Frame is going away, Google will continue to work with companies that still depend on older browsers. As pointed out by Cyrus Mistry, senior product manager for the Chrome for Business browser, the company still offers a tool, known as “Legacy Browser Support,” that lets you configure Chrome so that it pops up older browsers such as IE6, IE7, and past versions of Mozilla Firefox, when it visits certain web sites.