| Developer(s) | PCMan (Hong Jen Yee), yuoo2k |
|---|---|
| Stable release | 1.5.20090525 / June 3, 2009 |
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows |
| Type | Browser extension |
| License | GPL |
| Website | ietab.mozdev.org |
(category) |
|---|
| Contents |
| Origins and lineage |
IE Tab is an extension for the Mozilla Firefox, Flock, Google Chrome[1] and SeaMonkey web browsers which allows users to view pages using the Internet Explorer layout engine. This may be useful for viewing pages that only work in Internet Explorer (e.g., Windows Update) without exiting the user's preferred web browser. Pages viewed through the IE Tab extension will be recorded in Internet Explorer's history, cache, and so on, as if they had been viewed directly in Internet Explorer. The extension has become popular among web developers, since they can display and compare their websites in the two browsers simultaneously.
Laura Blackwell of PC World wrote that the extension is also useful for die-hard Firefox fans who still keep an Internet Explorer window open "just for those holdout sites that require IE to function." The extension "makes it a little easier to reduce your IE dependency: It lets you open a Firefox browser tab that runs sites intended for IE."[2]
Contents |
IE Tab was originally conceived by a Taiwanese medical student, Hong Jen Yee, a free software enthusiast known as PCMan on the Internet. He first developed the plugin and provided a simple demo page; he then released it to the forums of the Taiwan Mozilla community. It caught the attention of three other Taiwanese Firefox extension developers, known online as yuoo2k, dexter, and softcup. They created an extension to facilitate the use of the plugin. The developers then started to work together. With some instructions for XPCOM usage from European Mozilla developer Christian Biesinger, they finally integrated the plugin and the extension successfully, and formed the prototype of IE Tab. After its release on mozdev.org and the MozillaZine forum, the tool became quite popular. IE Tab was later developed for Google Chrome, based on the original IE Tab, by Blackfish Software.
The original developer, Hong Jen Yee, quit the project in early 2006 because he had become a full-time Linux user. The project was abandoned and the extension quit working as of Firefox 3.6.
Some other groups of developers are taking over the development of IE Tab, making it compatible with Firefox 3.6+. These include the IE Tab 2 project (ietab.net) and the IE Tab Plus project (coralietab.mozdev.org). IE Tab Plus includes an "optional price comparison feature" that has been classified by users as malware,[3] but the author provides an alternate version without it.[4]
Hong Jen Yee has decided to start updating IE Tab again. He raised concerns about IE Tab 2 because he could not find the source code, and this resulted in a controversy about the legality of IE Tab 2. But the developers of IE Tab 2 have shown that they shared the source code when it was requested, and they have also placed it in a Google Code repository which can be found here: https://code.google.com/p/ietabv2