

Google Announces Admin-Free Chrome Frame Installs For IE - guptaneil
http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/10/google-chrome-frame-ie-admin/

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ccorda
The IO session is up on YouTube:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YkEUpJQP3o&feature=chann...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YkEUpJQP3o&feature=channel_video_title)

29:30 mark is where the admin rights discussion begins.

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mixmastamyk
A shame they solved the problem for people using IE8 on Win7. In my opinion
that is not nearly the pain point that IE6 on XP is. :/

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sundarurfriend
They demoed it using IE8 on Win7, but did he ever specifically state that it
works only there?

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mixmastamyk
No, but as it would generally only be useful on XP and they didn't show it,
I'm not optimistic.

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ck2
Nice! but, if this is possible then it's a security violation, no?

What prevents malware from mimicking the same technique?

I have to assume they are using some kind of "trusted" activex cert?

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camwest
So now how can I get my web app to prompt users to install this?

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ccorda
"As an alternative to server-side sniffing, you can use the CFInstall.js
script to detect GCF and prompt users to install the plug-in without
restarting their browsers"

[http://www.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/chrome-frame-
gett...](http://www.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/chrome-frame-getting-
started#TOC-Detecting-Google-Chrome-Frame-and-P)

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spiralganglion
I for one would love to be privy to this "backstage" discussion... but I'm
half-way around the world. Let's hope the Google guys remember that there's
this new-fangled "internet" thing and spill some of the beans up here.

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dholowiski
This also moves chrome frame from a "funny geek joke" to a viable tool to
ensure your web site is displayed properly, no matter what browser your
visitors are using.

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zmmmmm
Wow, this is really significant - I think it is not understating things to say
that Google just saved HTML5, at least in the near term.

I've been lamenting for a long time that I have no story to tell customers who
need to cater to users stuck on locked down machines with IE. This finally
gives a story to tell and we can move forward with a baseline of Chrome / IE9
/ FireFox 4 without leaving any large group of users out.

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kogir
So, if a user can get Chrome Frame on the system and running without admin
rights... why not just have them download an admin-free standalone instance of
Chrome instead? I fail to see the benefit of running in IE.

I'm clearly missing something.

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simonw
End users shouldn't have to remember that they need browser A to access one
site, and browser B to access another. Remember, a problem Chrome Frame helps
address is that many companies short sightedly tied themselves to internal
intranet tools that only work in IE, hence the desire for an IE browser that
can also handle HTML5 (and runs on XP).

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Sottilde
The actual link for installing the new chrome frame installer as a user (not
admin) is: <http://www.google.com/chromeframe?user=true>

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tobylane
I don't know how my restrictions compare to others, but why not use a portable
Chrome? Chrome frame is for serious limitations, I hope no filter blocks the
download.

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dingle_thunk
This thing stores saved passwords in plain text. Like everything else in IT,
it has security vulnerabilities which will need to be managed. This will
bypass group policy restrictions preventing the use of plugins, downloading of
files/web-fonts, etc and has no central management functionaltiy. Google is
likely to enable it for accessing GMail, Google Enterprise Apps, etc - which
means large companies and governments are not going to be happy about this at
all. They may have just killed off quite a bit of their enterprise credibility
here...

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mixmastamyk
If a company is using IE6 (whilst giving lipservice to security) it deserves
to die in a fire. Hopefully it shall promptly meet its doom in favor of more
technically adept competitors ... the IT equivalent of the Darwin Awards.

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dingle_thunk
This plugin still works if a company has deployed IE9 and Group Policy
compatible builds of Firefox or whatever else. It's a Google-endorsed way
around group policy.

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mixmastamyk
Right, after I wrote that I watched the video and noticed it appeared to work
only on Win7, making it mostly useless. Still, no tears shed.

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kevingadd
My guess is they're doing this through registry emulation - you probably have
to run an application that starts IE after installing hooks to emulate the
registry, since normally the only way to install a COM component is to modify
parts of the registry that can't be accessed by non-admins. By emulating the
registry APIs you can 'fake' the installation for a single process and load
COM components as a guest user. Probably not something Microsoft would approve
of, but I've done it in a COM-based application before to make it usable for
guest users, and it worked.

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blibble
since Windows 2000 you've been able to register COM components in
HKEY_CURRENT_USER.

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brianjolney
now how about IE frame for Chrome 12? I need to be able to manage Bing paid
search and look at how horrible my development sites look in IE6 on this here
MBP...

