IE Tab -- Run Windows Update From FireFox?
Posted on Monday, February 20, 2006 at 10:11 PM by Randall
Some web pages still have to be viewed in Internet Explorer. Microsoft's Windows Update page is a well-known example of a web site that only works if viewed in IE. There are -- unfortunately -- other sites, including some government sites, that only work correctly in IE. For over a year, FireFox users have been able to use an extension called IE View to start a copy of IE displaying the page currently be viewed in FireFox. With the advent of FireFox 1.5, it has become possible to go one better. IE Tab allows embedding Internet Explorer in Firefox tabs. Better yet, you can switch a tab between Firefox and IE. If you visit a page that doesn't work right in IE, you just right click on the tab and select "Switch rendering engine" from the menu. This extention only works if you are running Windows and have IE installed.
This extension isn't perfect, a few "known issues" are listed on the IE Tab web site, but for the most part they are fairly minor. The major issue is that you are actually running IE in that tab so your memory requirements can be high and -- of course -- you are subject to most of IE's security issues when you use an IE tab. Still, it's a very handy tool.
Rating: 4 Stars
System: Mozilla Firefox Extension
Special
Requirement: Windows and Internet Explorer 4+
License:
Open Source (GPL)
Price: Free
Version Reviewed: 1.08
Web
Site: http://ietab.mozdev.org/
See
Screenshots