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A few months ago, we introduced Non-Admin Google Chrome Frame on the developer channel for testing. We deployed it to the beta channel two weeks ago and we are now bringing Non-Admin to the stable channel. Head over here to install it and let us know how it goes.

If you have installed the developer or beta channel version and wish to switch to the stable version, you'll need to uninstall Chrome Frame and then install via the above link. Note that the uninstall experience is smoothest if you close all Internet Explorer windows prior to uninstalling Chrome Frame.

In addition to Non-Admin Chrome Frame moving to the stable channel, we are rolling out a change to the default Chrome Frame installer; it will now run at Admin level by default and will fall back to Non-Admin mode if the user does not have the necessary permissions on their machine. This will allow all users to download a single installer that just works. This installer is available at the Chrome Frame download page.

As always, we welcome discussions in the Chrome Frame Google group and bug reports on Chromium’s issue tracker.

Posted by Greg Thompson, Software Engineer
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We released Google Chrome Frame in September 2009 to expand the reach of modern web technologies and help developers take advantage of HTML5's capabilities. Since then, we've seen great adoption of the plug-in by end users and developers. Even more exciting, we’ve heard from developers that Google Chrome Frame is enabling them to create legacy-free apps that are easier to build, maintain, and optimize.

However, there was one remaining obstacle to making Chrome Frame accessible to users of older browsers - users needed to have administrative privileges on their machines to install Chrome Frame. At this year's Google I/O we announced this obstacle has finally been removed.

Non-Admin Chrome Frame runs a helper process at startup to assist with loading the Chrome Frame plug-in into Internet Explorer. The helper process is designed to consume almost no system resources while running. Once installed, non-admin users will have the same no-friction experience that admin users of Chrome Frame have today.

You can try it yourself by installing the new non-admin version of Chrome Frame here. This is now available in our developer channel and is coming to stable channel very soon.

For more technical details, please see the Chrome Frame FAQ. Please share your feedback in our discussion group and if you encounter any bugs while using Chrome Frame, please file them on Chromium's issue tracker. We’ll be working hard to bring Non-Admin Chrome Frame up to the beta and stable channels over the coming weeks. You can help us move this up to stable as quickly as possible by trying out the current release and sending us your feedback!

Posted by Robert Shield, Software Engineer
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Since Google Chrome Frame was released in September we've published regular updates to improve stability and integration with Internet Explorer. Today's update continues this work but also contains two key changes that developers should be aware of.

First, until now Google Chrome Frame has used the <meta> tag for invocation.
<meta equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="chrome=1">
Unfortunately, doing this had a few potential problems, including some challenges for sites which couldn't place the <meta> tag early enough to trigger Google Chrome Frame reliably.

As of today, Google Chrome Frame additionally allows sites to serve an HTTP header for invocation. Use of the <meta> tag is still supported, but sites can take advantage of the new trigger by specifying an equivalent HTTP header:
X-UA-Compatible: chrome=1
This has the following benefits:
  • Sites that detect Google Chrome Frame can serve content with standard MIME types (including application/xhtml+xml), which Microsoft Internet Explorer does not natively support.
  • The HTTP header will always be detected, no matter how many other headers are served.
  • The HTTP header passes the W3C validator (which the <meta> tag syntax did not).
  • HTTP headers can be centrally configured in your web sever for blanket rollout of Google Chrome Frame support. For example, to enable GCF site-wide for browsers that support it, in Apache (with mod_headers and mod_setenvif enabled) specify a header directive like:
<IfModule mod_setenvif.c>
    <IfModule mod_headers.c>
        BrowserMatch chromeframe gcf
        Header append X-UA-Compatible "chrome=1" env=gcf
    </IfModule>
</IfModule>
Secondly, today's release also renames the "cf:" protocol to "gcf:" and disables "gcf:" by default. You can enable it on your local system for testing by adding a REG_DWORD value named EnableGCFProtocol with a value of 1 to the following registry key: HKCU\Software\Google\ChromeFrame.

This change will help avoid misuse of this development-mode feature and will reduce the number of spurious compatibility issues reported.

Your copy of Google Chrome Frame should be automatically upgraded with these changes. To learn more, ask questions, or get involved, visit our site or join the Google Chrome Frame discussion group.

Posted by Alex Russell, Software Engineer
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