> See all those Google demos from past several years: "You need Chrome to view this" sounds very much like those "IE5+" warnings.

I'm in sympathy with the spirit of this post, but I'm not sure that I agree with this specific example. I think that there's a big difference between an 'everyday' web page requiring a specific browser, and the creator of a browser showing off what they see as its exceptional capabilities.

However much designers (and users) like adherence to standards, I think that it's clear that a lot of the innovations we take for granted have come from browsers leading the way; and there's not much point in having those innovations in the browser if the user doesn't know about them.

(I should be clear that I'm not advocating a functionality free-for-all, though; probably much more harm than good has come from this behaviour.)