Google announces web browser: is Firefox dead?
Its been all over the web for the last 24 hours; Google have announced they’re working on an IE and Firefox competitor called Chrome. I share some of the opinions raised in a Cnet news.com article, especially the points about Google having to share Chrome with the open source community, but I’m not sure I agree with its conclusion.
Matt Asay essentially says people will not defect to Chrome because Google has thus far failed to get any significant adoption of its existing client-side software. He makes a good point, but I can’t help but feel people want a better (or maybe just new) way to surf the web.
Byond tabs (which are “just” an evolution – albeit a very useful one) we’ve not really seen significant innovation in browsers for a number of years. I emphasise seen because both Mozilla and Micorsoft (and to some degree Opera) have all made improvments to their respective browsers, but the basic idea remains the same. Do any of us think the current model cannot be improved? I honestly don’t know. Web Slices (in IE8) seem like a good idea – I’ve long wanted a way to cut out a part of a webpage and paste it onto my desktop and still have it “live” with updated information. However, slices require a webpage to be coded in a certain way to support them, which will slow down adoption.
Google have a strong brand and if Chrome manages to significantly improve the way we use the web without further eroding user privacy, I’m sure it will be adopted. How they strike the right balance between using Chrome to deliver more adverts to their users (which means user profiling) and maintaining user privacy will be an interesting thing to watch.