I'm a huge proponent of making web sites and applications cross-browser compatible. It's been a trying task, but Chrome Frame has made things a lot simpler.

Read about the updates here.

The problem I've found (especially among corporate clients is the issue that they have internal systems requiring them to stay on IE6 or 7. When building an application for internal usage I want to make use the latest and greatest, unfortunately I was stuck building apps on what I considered a sub-par level, using old techniques and skimping on some nice features and usability tweaks.

Along comes Chrome-Frame, and without upsetting the delicate IT environment I can give users the features and functionality to make apps more user-friendly, intuitive and more efficient.

Implementation?

Google has a very easy method for IE detection and Chrome Frame prompting, but awhile back I decided to build a custom way that's a little cleaner using some jQuery. It's not a full-force 'plugin', but it has made it so that when I need to implement it I can do it quickly and make it look nice.

Check out the Google Chrome Frame jQuery 'Plugin' here.

So, Why Another Blog Post?

Because this is exciting for anyone that has ever dealt with IE6/7 issues (which should be everyone that ever worked in web). For awhile it seemed like Chrome Frame was stagnating and not really going to be developed any further, but today's news supports the fact that we have another option for dealing with the pesky IE issues that plague out development process.

Important Note.

Chrome Frame is probably not a good 'front-end' solution. Why? because you force normal visitors to install something to be able to view your site. Unless your site's audience consists of a VERY SMALL percentage of IE6 users I would avoid using this on anything except places where having a user install something to increase their ability to interact with the application is truly a benefit.