Chrome today, browser wars heaten up!
True to the rumor, Google made available a taste of its own browser development to the general public in the usual BETA style today. It has got posted a link right below www.google.com that says “New! Download Chrome (BETA) – the new browser from Google”. Google’s new browser, called chrome was promoted in a rather un-convential way which we have now come to expect from Google after all these years. Comic book promotion was used to promote the new Google baby. Here’s the link if you somehow missed it out.
Now the question remains as to why would Google need to bring on a browser by itself. Is it done supporting the Open-source Firefox now that its at the peak of its popularity? Firefox has managed to grab more eyeballs with the version 3 being launched just 3 months before the Chrome launch. But as per sources, Google is still funding Firefox and also supporting its advertising campaign till 2011. So the stance of Google on Firefox after this chrome launch looks a bit sceptical, isn’t it.
But going by the facts (and personal experience), IE still remains the market leader in the browser war. But Firefox ain’t far behind, what with it having plugged up its memory leaks and runs a lot faster now than FF2. And who would like to forget that the Firefox spirit lies in the enormous plugins and skins that we find for it, and which only keep getting better and better each and every coming day. Here’s one interesting article that points out the existing market share and why Firefox is bound to increase its lead once the technical awareness of the audience increases (Amen!). So Big Brother Microsoft will remain until we have people who can’t tell the bytes from the bits in the computer-world.
I managed to read a host of features for the newly-available chrome today at their site. Most of it are the same as the one we have already available in the new FF3. The only distinct features seem to be the “sandbox” structure they claim to have built the entire Chrome on. In basic terms, you can monitor the memory, cpu and the network activity for a single tab from a built-in task manager. And if any tab mis-behaves, you can just close that tab without affecting any others. Another is the inCognito tab-mode feature, wherein you can browse without your history being saved for that particular tab. Cool small features, but not enough for me to leave firefox just now, since firefox hasn’t crashed for me since I upgraded it !!
With Chrome, Google has stated that making softwares for the desktop is as prime a business for it as making the ones for the web and from it to take over the last web-mantle that old Microsoft has still a strong hold on. But Microsoft doesn’t seem to fazed on with this, it says that its IE8 , for which it has started releasing the BETA versions is a totally new experience. This is a video describing the new features of IE8..
And we still haven’t touched over the “aurora” features that the Labs at Mozilla are working on? I think I will dedicate a whole post to that since its too exciting and too big to get fused in this post.
Browser wars, get it on !
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