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Retiring Chrome Frame

blog.chromium.org

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Re: Retiring Chrome Frame

#61

Post by Tenhundfeld »

tomkarlo wrote: post #57
apalmer wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hahahahahahahaaa you have no idea the vast amount of windows code that is emulation layers to ensure that other companies legacy users can continue to use programs designed for dos, windows 98 etc. Google doesnt have to do it, but like i said thats why the c levels insist on microsoft even when their products arent anywhere near the most elegant, feature rich, or performant.

That's supporting their own legacy products, not other companies'.

Nah man, he's saying Microsoft goes to extreme lengths to keep old 3rd party software running on new versions of Windows. For a long time (maybe still), there was a principle at MS that upgrading to a new version of Windows should never break a 3rd party app.

I can't speak to the emulation layers, but there are tons of verified stories about MS writing special code that actually watched the running processes and adjusted the behavior of the OS. They'd look for popular apps that utilized bugs/quirks in older version (which were remedied in new updates) and essentially emulated that bug for that one process to keep it working in the new version of Windows. Crazy, crazy stuff. Sim City was a famous example.

From Joel Spolsky: "I first heard about this from one of the developers of the hit game SimCity, who told me that there was a critical bug in his application: it used memory right after freeing it, a major no-no that happened to work OK on DOS but would not work under Windows where memory that is freed is likely to be snatched up by another running application right away. The testers on the Windows team were going through various popular applications, testing them to make sure they worked OK, but SimCity kept crashing. They reported this to the Windows developers, who disassembled SimCity, stepped through it in a debugger, found the bug, and added special code that checked if SimCity was running, and if it did, ran the memory allocator in a special mode in which you could still use memory after freeing it."

I'm no fan of MS, but that example speaks to a respectable dedication to a principle – rightly or wrongly.

Re: Retiring Chrome Frame

#62

Post by scholia »

illyism wrote: post #50
atesti wrote: post #44

Currently all those XP users can easily run Firefox or Chrome and are therefore not stuck to IE7, but I really wonder how long that will be possible. Will it be 1 or 2 years until Chrome won't run anymore on Windows XP? (Firefox has problems with the linker of older visual studio compilers already and any software compiled with a newer microsoft compiler will need the msvcrt update, unless you use http://kobyk.wordpr…

Those XP machines can download an older version of Chrome if it ever comes to that. And if Google Chrome no longer provides support I'm sure Chromium will. XP is 10 years old. It's remarkable that Google does still support it (unlike Microsoft supporting their own software) so let's praise them on that.

Where do you download older versions of Chrome, please? I uninstalled Chrome 27 completely because it was unusable (slow, pale blue screens, crashy etc) on XP but Chrome 25 worked fine....

PS XP is 12 years old.

Re: Retiring Chrome Frame

#63

Post by dragonwriter »

apalmer wrote: post #36
bambax wrote: post #33

I don't understand the problem; Chrome can be installed on XP without administrator privileges, isn't that enough for Entreprise users?

99% of monolithic web intranet application only works in IE 7 (8&9 in compatibility mode), you cant expect your user to have a separate browser for one subsection of a web app, and IE for the rest of it.

Chrome in managed environments supports this via Legacy Browser Support, which allows administrators to select (specifically down to port and URL, if necessary, or just by hostname) which sites to open with IE with the rest defaulting to Chrome (or vice versa, as is most convenient for the particular environment.)

Re: Retiring Chrome Frame

#64

Post by tomkarlo »

Tenhundfeld wrote: post #61
tomkarlo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's supporting their own legacy products, not other companies'.

Nah man, he's saying Microsoft goes to extreme lengths to keep old 3rd party software running on new versions of Windows. For a long time (maybe still), there was a principle at MS that upgrading to a new version of Windows should never break a 3rd party app. I can't speak to the emulation layers, but there are tons of verified stories about MS writing special code that actually watched the running processes and adju…

Yes, Microsoft maintains tons of legacy support for user's running old software on newer platforms - but that's essentially support for their own legacy platforms. They don't go out and provide tools for say, pre-OSX Mac users to get the latest Microsoft Office. Chrome Frame is essentially software that runs on top of Microsoft's legacy, deprecated browser and allows it to have modern functionality.

As the post points out, Google Chrome does have features similar to what you describe to allow backwards-compatibility with legacy sites that need an old browser. That's not this.

Re: Retiring Chrome Frame

#65

Post by xaro »

scholia wrote: post #62
illyism wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those XP machines can download an older version of Chrome if it ever comes to that. And if Google Chrome no longer provides support I'm sure Chromium will. XP is 10 years old. It's remarkable that Google does still support it (unlike Microsoft supporting their own software) so let's praise them on that.

Where do you download older versions of Chrome, please? I uninstalled Chrome 27 completely because it was unusable (slow, pale blue screens, crashy etc) on XP but Chrome 25 worked fine.... PS XP is 12 years old.

FileHippo saves old versions http://www.filehippo.com/es/download_google_chrome/history/

Re: Retiring Chrome Frame

#66

Post by j-kidd »

hughw wrote: post #48
RobAtticus wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome Frame will still work after January, just it won't be updated anymore. I assume that means you can still rely on it for your product, no?

No IT manager would permit an unsupported browser plugin to remain deployed. Who's going to fix newly discovered exploits?

That's the beauty of Chrome Frame. In most cases, it gets "deployed" without needing any approval from IT.

Chrome for Business looks like a solid and proper upgrade path, but it does require a semi-progressive IT team.

Re: Retiring Chrome Frame

#67

Post by freehunter »

omh wrote: post #52
apalmer wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand this completely. But moves like this is why you see Internet Explorer 6 still in the wild. Because C-levels can be confident that Microsoft will continue to provide baseline support, security patches, and forever. My boss didn't even get annoyed, he just said 'too funny' and reminded me of when he was telling me to just build on IE7 baseline. 6 Months in the Enterprise world is a barely time enough to sn…

Microsoft will continue to provide baseline support, security patches, and forever Actually they're going to stop providing IE6/7 support and patches in a little under a year.

IE6 was released 11 years ago, which is beyond forever for a browser version to be supported. No other vendor that I'm aware of provides support for browsers from that era.

Re: Retiring Chrome Frame

#68

Post by coldtea »

timothya wrote: post #24
apalmer wrote: post #21

Google may be continuing with the 'Don't Be Evil' motto but they sure ain't standing by a 'Don't Be Dicks' motto. What major software company announces a deprecation with 6 months of support. I have something going out relying on chrome frame plugin going out next week, now I have to go with my tail between my legs. Well lesson learned, can't rely on Google in the enterprise.

What were you paying for Chrome Frame? Sometimes, it makes sense to retire products. And if you're not making money on the product, then it can be expensive to keep supporting it. I think six months is still a reasonable amount of advanced notice. No matter what, a small minority will be unhappy. I think the real lesson here is: don't build something serious on top of a product you don't pay for and you don't have an…

>What were you paying for Chrome Frame?

With the virtual currency of trust towards Google as a competent solutions vendor.

Re: Retiring Chrome Frame

#69

Post by coldtea »

scott_s wrote: post #59
apalmer wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand this completely. But moves like this is why you see Internet Explorer 6 still in the wild. Because C-levels can be confident that Microsoft will continue to provide baseline support, security patches, and forever. My boss didn't even get annoyed, he just said 'too funny' and reminded me of when he was telling me to just build on IE7 baseline. 6 Months in the Enterprise world is a barely time enough to sn…

Will Microsoft continue providing baseline support for IE6 indefinitely? I doubt it. The top Google hit for "ie6" is http://www.ie6countdown.com , which is Microsoft's own site for tracking and celebrating the death of IE6. I imagine that once those numbers get low enough around the world, they'll stop supporting it.

>Will Microsoft continue providing baseline support for IE6 indefinitely? I doubt it.

Doesn't matter, they already have supported it for centuries in tech years.

Re: Retiring Chrome Frame

#70

Post by hugs »

timothya wrote: post #24
apalmer wrote: post #21

Google may be continuing with the 'Don't Be Evil' motto but they sure ain't standing by a 'Don't Be Dicks' motto. What major software company announces a deprecation with 6 months of support. I have something going out relying on chrome frame plugin going out next week, now I have to go with my tail between my legs. Well lesson learned, can't rely on Google in the enterprise.

What were you paying for Chrome Frame? Sometimes, it makes sense to retire products. And if you're not making money on the product, then it can be expensive to keep supporting it. I think six months is still a reasonable amount of advanced notice. No matter what, a small minority will be unhappy. I think the real lesson here is: don't build something serious on top of a product you don't pay for and you don't have an…

The other lesson is: Use open source solutions. If a company drops support for something that's open source, you have the option to pay someone else (or DIY) to continue that support going forward.
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