You're actually running the Google Drive app, which is more than just a Web page - it adds some code to your copy of Chrome that gives Docs full clipboard privileges.Ī couple of years ago, you had to install this app yourself, but in a fresh copy of Chrome, logging into Docs sufficed to load it automatically.ĭocs isn't the only Web app to run into this problem.

The version of Google Docs you run in Chrome isn't the same thing as the one you'd use in Safari, Firefox or IE. The answer is that Google gave its Web app a way around its own rules. And it's a lot easier to find yourself on a malicious website than to install malicious software on your Mac or PC. Why lock them out? Your computer can't tell the difference between a JavaScript-driven action that you took, such as clicking a button in a Web app, and one that a website executed on its own and without your consent. Q: Why do the 'Cut,' 'Copy' and 'Paste' commands under the Edit menu inside Google Docs not work in my browser?Ī: It can seem kind of crazy when you look at it: Google first put menu items into its Web-based word processor that are merely decorative in most browsers - its own Chrome is one exception - then wrote an error-message dialog telling you to ignore those commands.īut it's the inevitable outcome of two things intersecting: interactive sites that use Web code (in particular, one called JavaScript) to look and act like programs installed directly on your computer, and a standard security precaution in browsers that blocks Web code from any access to the system clipboard.

Google drive internet explorer