A bit of background
On September 22nd the Google Chrome literally tore apart rival browser Internet Explorer from the inside out. A new plug-in called Chrome Frame now allows you to run the popular WebKit rendering engine and Chrome’s superiorly fast Javascript engine V8 within IE 8.
So what’s the issue?
Obviously this was not going to make Microsoft happy and if you didn’t see some sort of response coming you are horribly ignorant to how intense the browser wars are. This is sort of like a parasite eating you from the inside out and is definitely not welcome. So what does Microsoft due to lessen this “viruses” effect? Whip out the big guns, security.
In a post from Computer World, Microsoft is cited claiming that Chrome Frame is circumventing IE’s built-in security features. Microsoft was also cited as saying that running a browser within a browser doubles security threats. Of course Google shot-back claiming BS and that IE with Chrome Frame actually increased security. Go figure, right?
How about this Microsoft and Chrome Frame users, no one cares. Why? Because of Chrome Frame’s demographics.
Let us put this into perspective demographic wise. The people who are aware of Chrome are more or so the nerds and IE is a browser universally known. So, I think it is safe to assume that Chrome Frame will be installed by a subset of even smaller group of nerds. Why? Because blogs like TechGeist and TechCrunch have an audience that more or so don’t need Chrome Frame because they already have Chrome installed and if they did need Chrome Frame they probably use a little something called common sense (the best anti-virus) to keep their computer secure. But say the product was to be covered by mainstream news outlets it would hit a much larger audience potentially making a need to delve deeper into security issues, but since we all know that is not going to happen, why all the fuss?
This argument is pointless and the whole argument of browser security is rather mundane. What it all comes down to is educating the mainstream end-user about safe browsing. Something all participants in the browser wars are failing to do.
