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How To Use Internet Explorer Inside Google Chrome with IE Tab Extension

Though the Internet Explorer domination from the browser market is over, we still need it to view some Internet Explorer only sites that doesn't support the modern and crowd favorite browsers like Chrome, Firefox or Opera. So even Chrome users may have to head over to Internet Explorer to open such Internet Explorer Friendly websites sometimes. To solve this issue, here we've found a very useful extension named IE Tab, which virtually opens up the Internet Explorer inside the Chrome window.

IE Tab for Chrome is actually invented by the makers of IE Tab for Firefox, which actually emulates the Internet Explorer window in Google Chrome. It can be configured to launch IE based websites directly from the extension that you won't need to even think about heading over to actual Internet Explorer installation on your PC. Though you can't remove Internet Explorer because this extension uses the resources of Internet Explorer installed on your machine. So, don't forget to keep your Internet Explorer up-to-date so that we can be assured of full-proof security.

What Are The Uses Of It?

As mentioned earlier, The IE Tab uses the resources from the actual Internet Explorer installation that resides in your Windows. So if you are using the OS other than Windows, say MacOS or Linux, this extension will not work. If we ignore this limitation, it has many usages:
  • Web Development – View web pages in IE 7, IE 8, or IE 9 mode.
  • IE-Only Websites – Load IE-only websites within Google Chrome.
  • Outlook Web Access & Sharepoint – Use features that only work in IE.
  • ActiveX Controls – Run ActiveX Controls, which is an IE-only technology

How To Use IE Tab

Well, installation is very simple. It is same as any other chrome extension installation. Just head over to IE Tab Page of Chrome Web Store and install the extension by clicking "Add to Chrome". It will download and install automatically. When the installation is finished, you'll see the logo containing Internet Explorer at the Extension Bar beside the Wrench Menu of Google Chrome. Click it to open the Internet Explorer inside Chrome.


It will open up the currently open tab in the IE Mode. In this screenshot, I had google.com already opened, so it opened google.com in IE mode. You can browse normally as you would from Internet Explorer. Just enter the URL in the newly created address bar and it will open as if it is opening in the Internet Explorer.

IE Tab doesn’t integrate perfectly with Chrome – each IE tab frame has its own address bar. To bookmark a page, click the bookmark icon on the IE Tab toolbar. IE Tab will create a bookmark and save it to the “IE Tab” folder on your bookmarks toolbar. When clicked, the bookmark will load the current page in an IE Tab.

You can tell it’s using Internet Explorer because it isn’t rendering TechnoTravel.in properly. (To be fair, the drop-down menu works properly when IE Tab is set to IE 9 mode, but it uses IE 7 compatibility mode by default.

Advanced Features

The IE Tab is feature-rich in terms of emulating the Internet Explorer. Just click on the Settings button of the IE Tab Bar to go to the settings page that will let you configure your IE Tab. It is fill with lot of features. Here are the details.

First of all there are some General Options that needs no explanations!


Then there is the Auto URL feature. As the name suggest, you can configure to render particular website or link directly from IE Tab, so that you won't need to care to reload that particular website in the IE Tab. It will get captured by the IE Tab automatically.


If there exist some URLs from the Auto URLs that you still want to load via chrome, then you can do that as well. Just add that particular URL in Auto URL Exceptions to serve your cause.


There is another interesting feature called IE Compatibility Mode that will load the pages with the IE mode that you want to emulate from. It supports variety of IE modes. By default, IE mode 7 is chosen.


Do you still wanna use the Internet Explorer instead of this extension? Or have you find any bug that bothers you to do so? Then comment it out to let us know what you feel.


Rajat Patel

Rajat Patel

Founder at TheNextGeek.com. Software Engineer & Business Analyst by profession. Avid open source evangelist. Mostly writes about Technology that interests him, and some neat tricks to make your day-to-day tech life a breeze.

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