Ok, we all know now Google Frame. What is it ?
It’s a plugin for IE that creates a frame inside and uses Webkit as renderer & javascript engine. All great because it allows you (the IE user) to see all the fancy new stuff like canvas, HTML5, SVG( maybe?).
But why?
I mean why would I take the overhead and want to use some sort of webkit disguised in IE, when I can have the real Chrome on my computer?
I believe is just a manner of saying “because we can”, because in the real world we won’t be able to use this in a productive manner.
IE is (sadly) still used in a very big percentage, meaning the final users don’t care, or don’t know or don’t want to use another browser. Most of the time all the news and efforts to popularize a better browser are done in a restricted “geeky” circle. How many computer users know about Chrome? or about Firefox? How many of them care about which browser helps them find information?
How about corporations? I’m stunned that a big telecommunication company used to register my personal data using IE6 – come on, they are internet providers, they are a telecommunication company, they don’t sell shoes – and still they don’t give a sh*t.
As developers (web developers) we have all sort of browsers on our machines, to test and make our work cross-browser, but for the others one browser is enough, and guess what : this one is still IE, the old pure IE ( 6 of course ).
So going back to Chrome frame:
- yes, it’s a nice plugin and in a smart company that does not want to disrupt the employees workflow with learning a new browser this would be a solution, even if implies a lot of work from the network admins – printing is still not working so this may be an issue.
- yes, it’s a nice tool to allow the latest web technologies work in IE
- yes, it’s a nice idea – just for the fun of having IE hacked
But regarding the real world with practical and pure pragmatical applications – I believe it won’t make a difference.
4 Responses
I agree with everything you just said, but you’ve completely missed the entire *point* of Chrome Frame, which is that all of a sudden the *developer* of any specific website can himself (or herself) *decide that the end user will not be using IE*…
This has the benefit of that developers don’t have to spend 300 man hours debugging IE6/7/8 bugs in his apps and websites…!
“But regarding the real world with practical and pure pragmatical applications – I believe it won’t make a difference.”
I beg to differ: Google Chrome Frame made it possible for us to deploy our JavaScript-heavy web application to an organization that blocks all browsers except IE6. The alternatives were to either develop another client tier or try to make the IT department understand why on earth our weird application doesn’t run well on “the only normal browser in the world”.
@Thomas
I think I don’t really understand your point. In my opinion a website should be accessible for every user – from the FF users to lynx ones. I totally agree that for a very small part of developers, that are able to “manipulate” the user’s computer – read Gabriel’s post, is an ideal solution, but for the average user is not a way to avoid developing your software for IE. You simply have to do it as long as you want not to lose the big percent of visitors using IE.
@Gabriel
Then how they did they accept google frame ? “Don’t worry, is a plugin, like Flash, only less popular” ? or what have you told them? Anyway, in your case indeed, this is the best approach and here google frame has it’s place. But come on, how many are like you ? How many from the web users can take advantage of this? Talking about particular cases, like I said in my post, is a good solution, but at large, I think it’s role will be limited. But I hope to be wrong