Google bypasses admin controls with latest Chrome IE
‘Screw your BOFH. Install our plug-in’ — Google has released a new version of Chrome Frame - the Internet Explorer plug-in that turns Microsoft's browser into a Google browser - letting users install the plug-in even when they …
Context & Ripple Effects
Chrome Frame dates from September 2009, when Google first shipped the plug-in that renders pages inside Internet Explorer with the Chrome engine — pitched then on order-of-magnitude IE 8 speed gains and defended by Google against Microsoft's objections that it weakened IE's security model. The June 2011 update escalates the original fight: installation now works even when a machine's administrators have locked plug-ins down.
The timing lands inside a broader web-versus-desktop contest between the two companies — days earlier, Microsoft had confirmed an HTML5-rebuilt SkyDrive and its Windows 8 endorsement of web apps, while Google was buying SageTV for living-room software. Whoever controls the rendering layer on Windows controls how much of that web stack actually reaches users.
First-order effects
- IT administrators on managed Windows machines lose their veto over which browser engine renders pages: employees can now activate Chrome Frame themselves even under locked-down group policies, directly undercutting the 'BOFH' control The Register's headline mocks.
- Microsoft's legacy IE base — still the default corporate browser in mid-2011 — becomes a softer target, since Google can reach those machines without waiting for IT departments or OS upgrades.
Second-order effects
- Enterprises face a forced choice between tightening endpoint lockdowns to block user-level installs or accepting a second rendering engine they do not patch or support — raising administration costs precisely for the lock-down-heavy customers Microsoft counts on.
- Rival browser and application vendors gain a template: if Google can route around administrator controls to deliver its runtime on a competitor's platform, plugin-level distribution becomes a legitimate escalation rather than an edge case.
Third-order effects
- The move treats the operating system's default browser as no longer authoritative — the rendering layer becomes contested territory that application vendors claim directly, a structure that shifts power from whoever ships the OS to whoever ships the most-used runtime on top of it.
- If bypassing admin controls is tolerated for browsers, expect the same argument to surface for other user-installed runtimes, forcing platform owners toward either permissive-by-default endpoints or explicit policy tooling to reassert control.
The trend: Browsers are consolidating into the decisive access layer above the OS, with vendors like Google willing to route around platform-owner and administrator controls to control what code actually renders on Windows.