Google Chrome

[jaydisc]

From a purely work oriented perspective, I am not too enthusiastic about another new web browser ... because being from Google, it has potential to be used by more and more people. And for me, it's another web browser to check the pages against when building websites, which means more work. :0

I'm in the same boat, but you can rest a bit easier as Chrome simply uses the WebKit engine, same as Safari, and an increasing number of mobile devices, including every iPhone, Nokia and upcoming Android phone. Web developers don't have it too bad anymore, because if you write good code, Gecko (Firefox) and WebKit are going to treat it well, so you're still only really stuck dealing with Microsoft. If you're starting to use the current crop of awesome JavaScript frameworks, browser compatibility is also not a worry. Again, it's Microsoft holding the industry back here.

This is so ironic it hurts. I can't believe you guys, blinding jumping on the largest corporations buggy crap like its pure diamonds in melted gold.

Oh man! The irony of YOUR irony is hysterical! Here's the Microsoft Windows guy talking about others using "the largest corporations buggy crap"?!?! You've got to start using the preview button.

Who is jumping?

And yeah, as Kup says, seems to me that everyone in this thread is cautious. I haven't heard anybody professing love, adoration or blind trust faith.

Still, its some corporations power play for market share, right?

That's quite an over-simplification, because most of these vendors aren't selling the browser as a commercial product (with one exception: Opera), so it's not like Dell vs. Lenovo or BMW vs. Mercedes in the traditional sense of market share. I find this so fascinating, so let me attempt to shed some light:

Firefox
Like many open source projects, there's definitely a bit of ideology doing the motivating here to simplify the browser, remove the previous Microsoft dominance, reduce resource requirements, improve speed, and be more standard compliant. But... Mozilla makes money, make no amends. And ironically, there source of income is Google. Whenever anyone searches for anything from the Firefox search field and/or the default Firefox home page, any AdWords links that are clicked are through Mozilla's affiliate account at Google, so when you apply that revenue across the millions of Firefox users, Mozilla makes MILLIONS on Google Advertising. FYI, Firefox is based on Mozilla's "Gecko" engine, which is present in all of the other Mozilla products and some other ones.

Safari
Safari is Apple's baby, and is based on Apple's open source engine, WebKit. There's a little bit of ideology here (albeit not as much), as Apple is also interested in standards compliance, because Apple wants webpages to work on Macs and iPhone, because Apple is in the business of selling boxes. Apple ONLY MAKES SOFTWARE in order to sell boxes. Anyone who tells you otherwise, is wrong (to quote our colleague Pulse: "Pure and simple")

Microsoft
The proverbial 500-pound gorilla in the room is interested in maintaining a pre-existing market dominance, to leverage their other businesses units and preserve their cash cows of Windows and Office. The two collectively make up near 50% of the [real] largest corporation's profits. Now, Microsoft, like Google, saw the writing on the wall, in that the upcoming power and obvious portability of web applications greatly threatened those two sectors. Ever heard of Google Docs? Microsoft has tried to move their Office products online and to subscription models, both failing miserably, like virtually all of their modern ventures. Now, in the wake of devastation known as Microsoft Vista, Google has released the second of their one-two punch. If people are already using Gmail and Google Docs, and all the other web apps out there, there is seemingly even less reason to by the US$500 Windows Craptop when you get a US$200 non-Windows one from Walmart that also runs all the same web apps.

Google
People look at many of these companies with lots of different products (e.g. Google, Microsoft and Apple) and see them as complex, diversified businesses, but virtually each one is almost consistently singularly focused. Apple sells boxes. Microsoft sells platforms, and Google sells advertising. EVERYTHING THAT GOOGLE DOES IS ONLY DONE TO SELL ADVERTISING. They are virtually the ONLY company that has found success in internet based advertising and the magic word is context. They understand context-based advertising, and that is seemingly one of the only types of advertising that is responded to in modern times.

So... back to your question. Isn't it just about market share? Sure, but market share of what? Browser sales? Computer sales? Platform domination? Advertising sales?