make background page use latest available IE version

[alfred-landrum]

The background window in IE comes up in IE7 mode; this is apparently the default for embedded internet explorer controls. This change makes the page load up using the latest available IE, though perhaps not for pages that would be considered 'intranet' pages.

The following stack overflow queries seem relevant, found via searching for related keywords on using IWebBrowser2: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6914664/iwebbrowser2-object-uses-ie7-version-instead-of-the-ie-version-installed-on-the http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4097593/how-to-put-the-webbrowser-control-into-ie9-into-standards

[alfred-landrum]

first off: thank you for the IE work here!

The reason I investigated this was the lack of typed arrays; we used typed arrays to pre-process data that our extension generates before uploading it. We have a working Chrome extension, so the code I'm trying to run in IE has been using more recent javascript capabilities than what's supported in IE7.

Some potential issues with including this would be any impact to existing extensions. And on activating the background debug console, it does seem to throw off the formatting between the two panes there. If there's concern on either front, you could close now, and we may be able to produce a better update later. However, we're just prototyping the IE work, so we may not come back to submit a better PR.

[makern]

Makes sense and I think I'd support changing it.

The only counter argument I have is that if you aim for IE7 support then it's good to force it as common denominator when developing on later versions so stuff breaks and you can fix it.

On the other hand IE7 is getting so old and the user base so small, it might not be worth supporting at all.