Iframes, How to use iframes, advantages and disadvantages of iFrames

Iframes, How to use iframes, advantages and disadvantages of iFrames

In this article, we will learn about the ifames, and will see how to use iframes in out web pages. Also we will see what are the advantages and disadvantages of using iframes.

The iframes come with some vulnerabilities, If your concern is security then you think twice to use iframes. In this article, we will see what is the iframes and how to use the iframes followed by what are the disadvantages of using iframes and when not to use the iframes.
So let's get started.

What is iframes:

An iframe is also called Inline Frames, It is a box where we can display the other document. NOT CLEAR? Let me explain, In the HTML there is a document where we display the HTML elements and their effects, basically HTML document renders its contents, but in the iframe, the document display the other websites contents or we can say the document display another document inside the iframe tag in the HTML.
There is a tag in HTML called <iframe>, this tag is used to display the other website's content, the document embeds another website's document in the current DOM tree. We can display another webpage inside the current DOM.

How to use iframes:

You can use the iframe tag of the HTML on your web page as.

                            <iframe src="WEBSITE_URL" title="Title of the iframe"></iframe>
                        

The <iframe> has an "src" attribute just like "img" tag. in the src attribute, we provide the URL of the website which we want to display.
WEBSITE_URL can be an absolute URL (other website's URL) or a relative URL (other files of the same web page).
the <iframe> can contain the following attributes.

- allow

- allowfullscreen

- allowpaymentrequest

- csp

- fetchpriority

- high

- low

- auto

- height

- loading

- name

- referrerpolicy

- sandbox

- src

- srcdoc

- width

Deprecated attributes

There are some attributes, which are deprecated and wouldn't be longer supported in the future by all user agents. You shouldn't use the following attributes as they are deprecated.

- align

- frameborder

- longdesc

- marginheight

- marginwidth

- scrolling

Example:

                            <iframe src="https://idkblogs.com/" title="This is your website"></iframe>
                        

Output:

You can see, that I have displayed this current website inside the iframes. iframes contain the other document of the URL "https://idkblogs.com/".

What are the advantages of iframes?

There are so many advantages of using iframes in your webpage, Below are some advantages of using iframes.

Embedded web page

The very basic and important advantage is that we can embed any webpage in our current document. It means we can have a webpage inside another webpage.

Reusability

Using an iframe provide the concepts of reusability. You can create a web page and distribute this webpage in iframes, and you need to change the webpage then you need not change every webpage where you are using iframes, simply you can change your original contents and every iframe will display the updated webpage. It provides a very convenient and fast way of reusability.
Ex. If your footer is the same on all the web pages then you can create a new webpage and use this footer inside an iframes.

iframe is Fast in loading

Usually, iframe takes less time in loading, iframe loading speed is good, that's why we can say, iframes are faster in loading.

Lazy-load iframes

Using iframes is good in terms of controlling the loading of iframes, iframes contain loading attribute, which is used to defer offscreen iframes and images till when user scroll nearby iframes. loading attribute can have three values.

lazy

eager

auto

Browser compatibility

Iframes are very good in browser compatibility, almost all browser is capable to load iframes.

Easy in showing map with iframes

If you want to show a map inside your webpage, then an iframe is a good way to display the map.
Ex.

Other advantages of using iframes

Iframes have a lot of advantages like scripting, positioning, and scaling, easy styling, link, border style, in showing maps etc.

What are the disadvantages of iframes?

To understand of disadvantages of iframes, I have published another article, so that I can cover all the disadvantages and its security risk properly.
I have added that article inside the iframe below. you can see it inside the iframe or you can click here to read IFrame Security Risk & Mitigation

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Conclusion:

In this article, we learn about iframes, What are iframes?, and How to use iframes? What are the advantages of iframes?
In this article, we'll see what are the disadvantages of iframes and what are the alternatives of iframes.

Related Keywords:

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