Full On Design

Recently Google Announced a new exciting product called Google Chrome Frame. Which is an add-on for Internet Explorer which offers Internet Explorer users all the features of other browsers without having to install a different browser (When a certain Meta tag is used on a web page)? The video Google released explains the product in a little more detail.

How it works

Google Chrome Frame seems quite easy to support, all the web developer needs to do is add the following code into the head of the web page they want to run like Google Chrome Frame:

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="chrome=1">

If the user has Google Chrome Frame installed the page will render like Chrome, if not the page will load as normal.

First Impressions

When I first saw this product I had two concerns:

• If a user knows they need a better browsing experience, they should upgrade to a better browser. Wouldn’t this just delay the uptake of better browsers?
• If a user can’t upgrade to a better browser (Due to corporate restrictions, low bandwidth or lack of information) the odds they will be not be allowed to install Google Chrome Frame. Which makes me wonder how many people will actually benefit from it?

Having said that the product also has its positive points, for example if a company has a network based on IE6 they may find that upgrading to another browser could cause their system to fail. Google Chrome Frame allows them to keep the old software while still work on more advanced browser bases developments, without breaking their network.

I can’t decide whether this product is beneficial for the development of the web, or if it’s just giving users another reason not to upgrade from Internet Explorer 6.

What do you think? Does Google Chrome Frame encourage users to not upgrade, or does it make web developers lives easier? Leave your views in the comment section below.