When I read that Google had release Chrome Frame – an Internet Explorer plugin that can inject the Chrome rendering & JavaScript engines into IE – I thought it was a pretty fantastic idea. While I’m squarely in the ‘down with IE6′ camp, and while retro-fitting standards-capable features into shoddy browsers is a neat concept, I don’t think its going to be that successful.

The technique

The idea is this – developers slap a custom X-UA compatible header into pages from which they would like to banish IE (any version, not just 6). When an IE-user visits the page, a small JS snippet can prompt the installation of the Chrome Frame plugin. Once installed, any further visits to a Chrome Frame compatible page will cause the IE rendering engine to be replaced with Chrome’s shiny, modern one.

Pros

Any web developer will tell you, reducing work on IE is their holy grail. Say goodbye to broken box models and alpha-PNG fixes, hello to the canvas tag and v8 JavaScript speeds.

Cons

That’s exactly the problem. Its not a developer’s job to choose how users want to browse, its the users’. We should definitely nudge – push, even – IE users towards better browsers, and we have a range of ways to do that, be it graceful degredation, restricted feature sets or blatant “download Chrome now” banners.

Sneaking in by the back door feels dirty, and could affect the user’s experience in adverse ways. For example, a steadfast IE6/7 user is probably quite familiar with IE visual effects and cues, such as Autofill. By using Chrome’s rendering instead, they are likely to become a little confused and may even prefer to go to a competitor’s site where everything looks nice and familiar (remember, we are talking about a user base who are disinclined to change).

The other major barrier is of course the step of installing the Plugin. Again, I’d wager that IE6/7 users who have ignored the calls to upgrade to IE8 are also likely to ignore this, too.

Intranets

Of course, the majority of IE6 users are locked in to it with no say in the matter. This is the case on many business intranets and corporate systems, where the cost of upgrading is prohibitive. In this scenario, I can see Chrome Frame being a great benefit to teams looking to create better applications without breaking their existing infrastructure. The success of the idea really rests on the plugin’s ease of distribution and maintenance – IT departments don’t want to swap one headache for another.

As for the rest of us, Chrome Frame will probably take one or two percent off that IE visitor stat, but there’s still a long way to go.