Mozilla also sees nothing in Google’s Chrome Frame plugin for IE

After Microsoft’s harsh words on Google’s Chrome Frame plugin for Internet Explorer, criticism is now also heard from Mozilla. The chairman of the Mozilla Foundation fears fragmentation in the browser market and confused users.

Google’s Chrome Frame plugin, released last week, makes it possible to render web pages in Internet Explorer by WebKit, the engine that is also used in Google’s own Chrome browser. Microsoft was not enamored with the Google plugin and stated that the application doubled the vulnerability of its browser. The software giant is now getting support from Mozilla. Mitchell Baker, former CEO of Mozilla and currently chairman of the Mozilla Foundation, blog know that she doesn’t see any point in integrating the WebKit engine into Microsoft’s browser.

Baker fears that the Frame plugin will confuse Internet Explorer end users, partly because IE plugins no longer function in combination with WebKit. Furthermore, she says there is a risk of further fragmentation in the browser market as developers release “foreign” render engines in other browsers, a phenomenon that Baker describes as a “browser-in-a-browser.”

Mike Shaver, vice president of engineering at Mozilla, is also critical, calling Google’s efforts to fix an “outdated browser” a dead end. According to Shaver not only blocks the Chrome Frame plugin from third-party IE plugins, but also Internet Explorer 8 functions such as InPrivate browsing mode and accelerators stop working when WebKit renders the pages.

Shaver also states that webmasters are given the power to force users through their sites to install another plugin, in this case Chrome Frame, ‘under the guise of HTML 5’. This error would have been made before with the ‘mandatory’ plugins needed to view Flash, Java and Silverlight content. Rather, web developers should explain to users how to install an alternative browser. Google has not yet responded to the open criticism from Microsoft and Mozilla.