title: Benefits and concerns with Google Chrome Frame
body: <p>Is this a technology I should spend much time evaluating?</p>
  
  <p><a href="http://code.google.com/chrome/chromeframe/" rel="noreferrer">http://code.google.com/chrome/chromeframe/</a></p>
  
  <p>Chrome Frame is a plugin for Internet Explorer (IE6-IE8) that gives it, well, what all the other major browsers have.</p>
  
  <p>Biggies for me are the Canvas tag and a fast JavaScript.</p>
  
  <p>As I do a lot of JavaScript dataset visualization, IE6 is a perpetual thorn in my side, and I often have to write extra code for it, and I often have to slow down the frame rate of user-driven real-time visualizations. Using Google Chrome Frame will allow me to produce a much more responsive experience for IE6 users.</p>
  
  <p>But I wonder if IE6 users may be in situations where their computers are under some kind of IT lockdown hell where they aren't even allowed to install a plugin (why else would they be using IE6?)</p>
  
  <p>So I'd still be left with what to do with the last poor souls in IE6.</p>
  
  <p>Still, IE8 lacks Canvas and the JavaScript is slow, so some of my users would see increased performance, maybe even up to Google Chrome and Safari levels.</p>
  
  <p>So again, my real question: Is this a technology I should spend time evaluating?</p>
  
  <p>Note: Google will be throwing up alerts to IE users to encourage them to download Google Chrome Frame for Google Wave. So maybe Google will get enough Google Chrome Frames out there on IE machines that I can just detect it and use it if it's there, and warn the user that experience may suffer without it. I hate to <em>demand</em> anything of my user. <a href="http://googlewavedev.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-wave-in-internet-explorer.html" rel="noreferrer">http://googlewavedev.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-wave-in-internet-explorer.html</a></p>