Speed Up IE8 With Google Plug-In

Computerworld has run tests on Internet Explorer, version 8, after the addition of the Chrome Frame plug-in available from Google.  The test results demonstrate that IE8, with Chrome Frame, runs almost ten times faster than IE8 without Chrome Frame.  IE8 handles JavaScript 9.6 faster with the addition of the plug-in.

To test and validate its results, Computerworld used the SunSpider Javascript program, running it three times on IE8 standing alone, and three times with the addition of the ChromeFrame plug-in.  The scores were averaged to achieve the published results. The average score with the addition of ChromeFrame was equal to the scores of Google’s Chrome browser, proving that ChromeFrame can optimize any Internet Explorer program to the speed and efficiency of the actual Chrome browser.

ChromeFrame, which hit the market this past Tuesday, provides Internet Explorer with access to its cutting-edge V8 JavaScript engine, and also the browser’s WebKit rendering capabilities.  Internet Explorer carries the reputation of being agonizingly slow, and the ChromeFrame plug-in is advertised as a way to combat that slowness.

In addition, IE will now be able to handle processes it was incapable of handline before, such as HTML 5, opening new possibilities for Web developers.  This is vital, according to Google, in order for IE users to run the more sophisticated Web applications that are now being developed.  Chief among these is the collaboration and communications system Google Wave, which was released in May 2009.

Why are these test results significant?  Because Google Chrome 3.0 has recently been identified as the fastest Windows browser on the market.  Computerworld tested Chrome against IE8, Safari 4.0 by Apple, Opera 10 by Opera Software, and Firefox 3.5.  Chrome 3.0 was considerably faster than any of its competitors.  It is notable that ChromeFrame can now provide that speed and efficiency to Internet Explorer users.

Browser users must actually install ChromeFrame.  Once installed, however, it is easy to automatically trigger the plug-in by inserting a simple HTML tag in their applications’ codes or on their sites themselves.  It is also possible to manually enable the plug-in from the user’s keyboard, without modifying any sites or applications.

Users can simply insert a prefix of “cf:” (without the quotation marks) in front of any URL they navigate to.  Computerworld used this tactic to compile the SunSpider results referred to in this article.

Interested users can download the ChromeFrame plug-in directly from Google’s website.  It works with Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8, using Windows XO and Windows Vista.