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I read that early builds of Chrome supported ActiveX, but was later restricted to certain MIME types (for support for say Windows Media Player). I then read Google was going to enable ActiveX strictly for the Korean market. How do I (re)enable this in Chrome?

Our web based product relies on ActiveX controls from 3rd parties to play custom video. This limits us to IE. We'd love to support Chrome also, but find it impossible w/o ActiveX support.

Jeremiah Morrill
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  • Instead of pushing your (3rd party) player at them, can you simply link or iframe the video and let the end user choose what player they want to use (e.g., by having it installed and configured for that mime type)? Then you'd be able to access the Mac and Linux markets, not to mention all of those Firefox users out there... – T.J. Crowder Oct 22 '09 at 09:12
  • The ActiveX's we have are from 3rd party DVR manufacturers. That is how they all release SDKs. They are not cross platform, they do not have the source. It's activex or the highway. – Jeremiah Morrill Oct 22 '09 at 09:15
  • So it's a proprietary video format? Yuck. – T.J. Crowder Oct 22 '09 at 09:23
  • Proprietary through and through, right down to their protocols. All closed tight. – Jeremiah Morrill Oct 22 '09 at 09:26
  • Right. Good luck with the ActiveX! :-) – T.J. Crowder Oct 22 '09 at 09:31
  • I found the command line option --allow-all-activex but it didn't work for me. Everything I've found says Chrome doesn't support ActiveX. – Bryce Kahle Nov 04 '09 at 02:26
  • Google is doing a Native Client plugin, which competes with ActiveX, so I wouldn't bet that Google has any plans to actively support ActiveX. – Lars D Nov 06 '09 at 08:58
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    Supporting or using ActiveX is a huge blunder anyway. – Rob Nov 06 '09 at 16:19

8 Answers8

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There is a proprietary plugin called "Neptune" which says that it will allow you to use IE Tab functionality in Chrome on Windows.

Meadroid do this because they have ActiveX controls which they have written and they want them to be able to work in any browser, and they explicitly mention Chrome in the list of supported browsers for enabling ActiveX with this.

There is also a modified version of Chrome, called ChromePlus, which includes IETab, among other extra features.

I've not used either of these personally, but they look like they'll do what you want. I'd be interested to hear if they work out for you, as I know of other people who want to be able to use IEtab in Chrome :)

David Gardner
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    Wow - that's like Chrome Frame in reverse. In this case why use Chrome at all - you'd just lose the piles of stuff from IE without gaining any performance. – Keith Nov 06 '09 at 16:18
  • @Keith : I think the point is that you get to use Chrome for 99% of what you do, and then IE for only the parts you have to (for ActiveX). If you want to use IE for particular features then just use IE instead... – David Gardner Nov 19 '09 at 14:03
  • what about trying steps mentioned in [this](http://support.myvisionexpress.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/444/0/how-to-activate-activex-for-google-chrome--firefox-for-single-sign-on-feature-for-rd-web-access) site, seems easy – Shaiju T Oct 08 '15 at 09:30
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anyone who says activex is less secure then NPAPI is crazy. They both allow the exact same access. Yes I've written both. The only reason people think activeX is insecure is because 10+ years ago IE had default settings that allowed a remote site to auto download the plugin.

john
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  • Indeed. Bad defaults have ruined many a reputation throughout the years. Sometimes just cutting bait and rebranding is the best move – Glenn Slayden Feb 26 '17 at 23:08
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maybe this new Chrome extension helps:

ActiveX for Chrome https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/lgllffgicojgllpmdbemgglaponefajn/

hewigovens
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This could be pretty ugly, but doesn't Chrome use the NPAPI for plugins like Safari? In that case, you could write a wrapper plugin with the NPAPI that made the appropriate ActiveX creation and calls to run the plugin. If you do a lot of scripting against those plugins, you might have to be a bit of work to proxy those calls through to the wrapped ActiveX control.

Irwin Coleman
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I'm not an expert but it sounds to me that this is something you could only do if you built the browser yourself - ie, not something done in a web page. I'm not sure that the sources for Chrome are publicly available (I think they are though), but the sources are what you'd probably need to change for this.

laura
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  • I appreciate the thought, but I don't think forking the Chrome browser and having customers install it would be received very well ;). – Jeremiah Morrill Oct 22 '09 at 09:16
  • Yep, that is what I was trying to imply as well. Guess I'd check more carefully if my point is well explained next time. – laura Oct 22 '09 at 09:59
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http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Does_Google_Chrome_support_ActiveX

Google Chrome comes with an ActiveX shim, as part of its default plugin array. So Google Chrome features at least partial support for ActiveX controls (as do many non-Internet Explorer browsers). I can't find information as to whether or not this includes support for ActiveX security certificates or the like, nor if/where such plugins can be controlled, within the browser.

..... Note that to enable the plug-in you must run Chrome with the following switch " --allow-all-activex" So in shortcut that is used to start up Chrome, add this after "Chrome.exe"

Vladislav Rastrusny
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Chrome currently supports only a small subset of ActiveX components entirely on purpose, and it's never going to support them all, and especially lots of random 3rd party propriety ones.

Why?

Because ActiveX is a mess - it's a huge security hole and all the components can run at a higher security level than the browser.

That means that if you let in an ActiveX component it owns your PC - and while many are not malign most are resource hogs. Also if a malign site can't hack your browser it might still be able to hack one of its ActiveXs.

This is completely against Chrome's sandbox everything and wall off every tab approach - the reason why Chrome is by far the quickest, most secure and most stable browser is the same reason that it currently only supports Flash, Silverlight and one or two more.

However, it sounds like you're not really developing a web application anyway - your site in IE is basically a portal to downloading further ActiveX-based applications. Why worry about supporting anything that your DVR clients with their coding teams writing ActiveXs don't?

Keith
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    ActiveX is supported in Chrome, but is limited to hardcoded COM GUIDs and mime-types. I'm looking to re-enabling all ActiveX. ActiveX is not a security hole, relative to an NPAPI plugin. I have even written a Java applet that delete the current user's files. I think you misunderstood the "sandbox" Chrome uses. It is not a sandboxed VM. Plugins must opt in for the sandbox to protect themselves from other plugins. All plugins ultimately run at the same security level as the browser process. Chrome did not add support for Flash and Silverlight, they technically support ALL NPAPI plugins. – Jeremiah Morrill Nov 06 '09 at 18:26
  • They have taken the NPAPI standard - although I understood that the're adding extensions to it. I know Chrome's not a VM, but it's a hell of a lot more secure than ActiveX. I didn't know that it supports all NPAPI plug-ins, I thought it was just a subset. Google's current problem is that they need the plug-in developers to make changes to give Chrome more control of how it isolates the plug-ins. My point is that a set of NPAPI clothes for an ActiveX might make it work, but it's going to be messy, and lots of work. What's the benefit for you? Why support Chrome at all? – Keith Nov 07 '09 at 12:21
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I downloaded this "IE Tab Multi" from Chrome. It works good! http://iblogbox.com/chrome/ietab/alert.php

Vittorio
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