Does Chrome Frame have a target audience?

Google launched Chrome Frame last week. It’s a browser plug in for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser that, if the website you’re visiting prefers so, turns it into Chrome. At first glance, this looked to me like a great solution and a well-deserved slap in the face for Internet Explorer, but then it hit me. Nobody will use this.

Recent versions of IE aren’t so bad. They’re slow, look a little silly and are still not as safe as the alternatives, but they render most pages OK enough. The real issue to us developers is the continued market share of IE6. If you’d add up all the money spent supporting IE6 in new, innovative web projects I’m sure you could save the economy of a small 3rd world country.

However IE6’s current user base is made up out of two types of users. Corporate employees who are not allowed to install or modify the software on their company computer, and people who don’t give a damn. If you care even a little and are allowed to upgrade your browser you have a better browser, if only for the tabs. Neither of these two groups will be likely to install Chrome Frame. Sad as it is, Frame offers no real solution to what is a very real problem.