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I have an application which does not perform well in IE, but works in Firefox. Rather than installing firefox (or asking users to install firefox), is there an "opposite" of the FireFox extension IETab, that is, a plugin for IE which renders a page using the Mozilla rendering engine?
Odd question, I know, and I have a feeling the answer is "No"...
Josh
Posted 2010-02-02T16:36:06.380
Reputation: 7 540
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Why not use the Google Chrome Frame? It's a plugin that makes the page use the WebKit rendering engine and V8 javascript engine.
Chances are if you have something that works in Firefox it will work with WebKit. And IE users are used to installing plugins for any given page so it's not much of an inconvenience to them.
Tyler
Posted 2010-02-02T16:36:06.380
Reputation: 4 203
1"Chances are" is not the same as "yes it does." I've had sites render very differently in WebKit vs. Gecko. – Josh K – 2010-02-02T18:34:20.243
Ok, that's pretty cool. This particular application uses an older version of TinyMCE which isn't compatible with KHTML, but if we can overcome that hurdle, this looks very promising. Thanks! – Josh – 2010-02-02T22:06:41.813
1@Josh K WebKit and Gecko can render sites very differently. If you have poorly implemented UA-sniffing going on you can have additional rendering differences. But in general WebKit and Gecko are going to be closer than Gecko and Trident. – Tyler – 2010-02-03T05:38:06.737
Honestly, this is as close as you'll get to embedding Firefox in IE. It shouldn't matter the actual engine that you're embedding, as long as your web application works it in (and in the case of Chrome, it definitely should). – Sasha Chedygov – 2010-08-25T23:18:53.320
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You can try Lunascape:
Lunascape is the world's first and only triple engine browser.
You'll have the choice between three browser engines: Gecko (Firefox), Webkit (Safari, Chrome) and Trident (Internet Explorer), now you can even run all 3 engines side-by-side in a single web browser.
Lunascape also supports a wide array of Firefox extensions.
Looks nice, but the idea is, many users don't want to install Firefox. So asking them to install Lunascape would probably be just as difficult. I was hoping asking them to install a plugin would go down a little easier... – Josh – 2010-02-02T22:07:35.510
1@Josh - Like IE Tabs for Firefox requires Internet Explorer to be installed (e.g. IE Tabs doesn't work on Linux or Mac OS X), a IE Plugin (let's call it FF Tabs :) would require Firefox to be installed anyway. IE Tabs is only possible because IE is installed on pretty much every Windows computer under the sun. :) – None – 2010-02-03T20:39:24.793
@Molly, Yeah, I guess I was hoping for a plugin which actually included the Mozilla rendering engine inside the plugin code, not one dynamically linked with firefox... – Josh – 2010-02-04T01:06:50.593
@Josh - there you are ... Lunascape will install the Gecko engine but does not require FF :) – None – 2010-02-04T01:27:31.387
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MSIE lets itself be embedded in other applications (because it's an OLE application). That is why Firefox can launch IE inside a Firefox tab. This seems to work so easily because Window always has IE installed.
The opposite is not possible; IE can't launch Firefox inside an IE tab because Firefox itself it not made to be embeddable in other applications. Even if embedding were possible, you would still need to have Firefox installed (you mentioned that you wanted to avoid that). You can't get the Mozilla rendering engine without installing it...
This is why any Windows application that needs a browser, either uses IE or contains it's own little browser application.
There was, once upon a time, an IE bookmarklet that would open the current webpage in Firefox - but that still requires Firefox to be installed.
Torben Gundtofte-Bruun
Posted 2010-02-02T16:36:06.380
Reputation: 16 308
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The answer is no.
Be more specific about the application. There are several sites that use proprietary code that only works on IE.
Adding to Mr. Static:
Not only would you have to install Firefox, but you'd also have to hijack IE to place Firefox's render on the screen. Think of it as an IFRAME on a website. You wouldn't be able to change how it was rendered or works. Any bugs present in Firefox would still be there. You'd be running Firefox, but it would be wrapped in IE's header and GUI.
Josh K
Posted 2010-02-02T16:36:06.380
Reputation: 11 754
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To add to Josh K's answer. No
For the reason that IE Tab uses IE since IE is already installed on the pc. So basically you would have to install FF to render with FF.
Unfundednut
Posted 2010-02-02T16:36:06.380
Reputation: 6 650
2This does bring up an interesting idea though. Packaging up the mozilla rendering engine into a plugin. Hmm... – Kenneth Cochran – 2010-02-02T21:29:53.583
1@Kenneth Cochran: That's exactly what I was meaning. Firefox is open source so it conceivably could be done... – Josh – 2010-02-02T22:05:31.443
I wonder if that would make IE more secure or FF more insecure. :D – cregox – 2010-03-11T18:37:55.870