Firefox users tend to be those that are looking for an alternative, or are at least wiling to try alternatives. So it seems natural that these same people would be the ones to give Google Chrome an early try.

If it was intended to compete with IE, I wonder if Google actually asked any IE users what would make them try out a new browser? It seems that most of the people who try out new software or register at new social networking websites are already technically-minded. Many of the remaining IE users will not go looking for a new browser - to them, IE *is* the Internet. A bit more work is required - perhaps advertising in offline media would be a good start for those people who don’t spend a lot of time online.

I’d have thought Google’s approach would be more push than anything, but only once Chrome goes into official release. Will IE users doing Google searches be greeted with search results bearing incentives to try out Chrome for instance?

It will be interesting though, as you say, trying to convince people there is an alternative to something that quite simply is “the internet” for so many.

Especially when you consider that those people may not like a different browser simply because it’s different. It’s an effort to learn new software. Not everyone wants to do it.

On a related note, have you seen some of the “think of the developers” material relating to how the web should be free of IE6? Has anyone considered that non-techy users, who are the people most likely to continue using an older version of something, may never see let alone consider let alone act on the requests to upgrade their browser? And the efforts will be futile if the people concerned use a version of Windows that’s older than XP Service Pack 2, because IE7 requires XP SP2 or above. Bit of a problem there… it’s not as simple as telling those people to upgrade IE, they would have to change browsers, and that is a lot harder to get people to do than going to a newer version of the same browser.

Well personally speaking, yes, the web should be free of IE6. It’s buggy and insecure, plus the need by developers to continue propping it up is only going to stifle innovation.

We all dislike change to some degree, and some far more than others, but this is an age where change is well and truly constant, and relentless.

People running IE6 on XP SP1 will be forced to make a change sooner or later, those PCs would be getting on a bit by now, and while XP is available if you look around, by the time they go to buy a new PC they’ll be running IE8 on Vista.

Developers should stop offering full support for IE6 though, but offer a workable option, degrade gracefully, as we used to say. Have you seen Zeldman’s 2001 article To Hell With Bad Browsers?