First when I heard the news of Google releasing its browser - Chrome, first thing that caught my mind was... What's up with Google?
I am a user of google products (and you know it when you read my blog on blogger!) and I have active accounts from gmail to picasa, blogger to orkut, and so on... every time I heard about a new google product I was excited to try it out as soon as I could. But this time, I was more curious to know... why another browser?
I am a software developer by profession and my arena is Microsoft Technologies. But that's only my profession. I don't say that I hate MS products and technologies. In fact I love them when they deserved to be loved and I give a shit when they deserve it. Same applies to others too. Many of my friends who are into similar technologies are more inclined towards Internet Explorer than the other browsers. However, I have always been more comfortable with Mozilla Firefox ever since it released. Only time I switch to IE is when a site I open in Firefox hates me to do it.
A good reason for sticking with Firefox is that for many things around it has always been Firefox first and IE following it (Okay, I am just comparing the two of them right now.. I know there have more "firsts" than the Firefox's "firsts"). It seems that at many times IE does it just because Firefox has done it. And MS is afraid of losing out to Firefox, which is spreading fast. While I was quite happy with the Firefox's latest Firefox 3, I came across the news of Google Chrome. And I thought.... yet another browser? Do we really need it? (Expand\Collapse...)
And immediately I realized that there could be no end for innovation. I was also thinking that if its from Google, it must be something new and innovative. My first reaction of the news was to go to the Google Chrome's page (http://chrome.google.com) and check out the "read more" page. And as google says, its a "fresh take on browser".. and I asked Why?
We have been witnessing the war between Firefox and IE. And the new browser from Google seems to me to be a more between Chrome and Firefox rather than the Chrome and IE. Well, the "read why we built a browser" page of Google Chrome didn't tell me much. Its more of an abstract talking about the innovative-ness of their product - like almost everyone else does.
And as they say: "Since we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if you started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build."
Well, that promising.. but its only abstract. Further down that page, they say: "This is just the beginning - Google Chrome is far from done. We've released this beta for Windows to start the broader discussion and hear from you as quickly as possible." Well, nothing wrong with this statement. This sounds even more promising. And I would be looking for the future versions of Chrome to see how much it can give to me. Trust me, I am a fan of Google. Because they are innovative. They have brought many things to us that no one else did (I know its debatable. People would say many "innovations" from google are actually "acquisitions". But I don't care. Because its the marketing world. If you market well, you sell yourself well. Period.). And I also believe that they will keep up to their promise of providing a modern platform for web with Chrome.
Two things I like about chrome is their each-tab-in-a-sandbox model and the incognito mode and I am really note sure if anything exactly similar exists in other browsers. I know they do not exist as exactly in IE or FF. Although IE runs separate processes for each window but its a sandbox only for a window and not for tabs within the windows, so tab crashing in IE means it takes the whole window down.. although other windows keep running nicely. Firefox runs all its tabs and windows in one single process. The incognito thing too is something I know I could use for reasons I wouldn't prefer to mention here :) . And it helps me still retain my regular browsing history and cookies.
But there was one strange thing that I observed with chrome. When I went to change the proxy settings for the browser, it opened up the IE Internet Options dialog for me! Why? Why? They wrote a whole browser and didn't they find time to get their own proxy settings feature? That is too weird to me and I can't guess what google was thinking.
Then, it crashes too much. At least on my box, way too much. I know its beta, but that doesn't mean that you put just anything in there and you say .. "Hey it's only beta!".
And hey, the browser windows are not the regular windows. Try tiling them and they won't! Although they do cascade well.
We have seen the attitude shifts among competitors when something from the rival becomes a hit. Take for example IE. Mr. Gates used to think that tabs are probably the worst things to have in a browser. And that since a decade old version of IE, I wished I had tabs. The only reason I used Netscape for some time almost 8 years ago, was I wanted tabs. But well, Netscape never caught my eye and I managed with a little utility called MyIE2 which seemed to provide tab like functionality to IE windows, but it definitely lacked features like "Open in new tab" for links. Only reason i used that little utility was that I could "categorize" the pages that open into separate windows and hence not clutter my taskbar (and "show in groups" feature of Win XP taskbar doesn't go down well with me).
Well, IE6 came I thought we would have tabs definitely by this time and a Pop-Up blocker. Because some time before that Firefox had arrived with tabs and pop-up blockers and was becoming popular fast (I know few others had it already). I presumed IE6 would have both of them. But to my utter disappointment, Microsoft and something else in its mind when they wrote it. That made me entirely switch to Firefox. Well, but we saw IE pop-up blockers with SP2, but tabs were still nowhere.
I was done. I had switched to Firefox. By the time IE7 came, I had adapted too much to Firefox and IE7 just proved to be something that Firefox already had. And Firefox was adding things faster. IE was lagging behind. IE 8 is on the cards, and I once gave its beta a try. But I am not sure if IE8 becomes just another add-what-firefox-has version of IE, or would it be able to give something new... honestly speaking,... I don't think so.
And now we see Chrome. I don't know if I'll switch to Chrome any sooner. Firefox has grown a lot, has already built a strong community and support, and has won the hearts of people. Google has to go a long way to go before they can challenge Firefox. And they can't do that with their beta software's current conditions simply because of the lack of stability & many sites not displaying well.
I was reading news articles today and they were saying "Chrome outshines Mozilla". C'mon guys, what are you talking? Chrome has just arrived and Firefox has impressively evolved over the period. Chrome just can't outshine beta in just one day! Google might be great, but they aren't as great yet, people...!!!
The community also says that Mozilla has lost once again as Google didn't choose its engine for its new browser Chrome. Instead Google relied on Mac Safari's engine - AppleWebKit. Well, I don't know well.. but I don't feel that Google chose AppleWebKit just because it thought it was better than Mozilla's engine. May be this was the reason, but may be this wasn't. And if this wasn't, then probably they wanted to be "different" from the market leaders like IE and Firefox! The next strategy of Google could be to make features in its web applications more "available" to its own browser (or rather I should say, to the browser's having same engine as Chrome's) and less "available" to other browsers. Because having this strategy in place definitely puts more pressure on other browsers. And with Google already kinda "acquiring" the world wide web, Google's own user base could fast switch to Chrome, just because the application's they use (aka Google's software) seem better in Chrome. As I said, I only presume this, and has no official basis.
I know its early. But it has gotta be more. And I hope Google Chrome doesn't end up being a ceaseless-beta like GMail.
EDIT: I found this link in Aki Da's blog that tells about Chrome through a series of cartoons. Nice one. http://blogoscoped.com/google-chrome.
We have been witnessing the war between Firefox and IE. And the new browser from Google seems to me to be a more between Chrome and Firefox rather than the Chrome and IE. Well, the "read why we built a browser" page of Google Chrome didn't tell me much. Its more of an abstract talking about the innovative-ness of their product - like almost everyone else does.
And as they say: "Since we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if you started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build."
Well, that promising.. but its only abstract. Further down that page, they say: "This is just the beginning - Google Chrome is far from done. We've released this beta for Windows to start the broader discussion and hear from you as quickly as possible." Well, nothing wrong with this statement. This sounds even more promising. And I would be looking for the future versions of Chrome to see how much it can give to me. Trust me, I am a fan of Google. Because they are innovative. They have brought many things to us that no one else did (I know its debatable. People would say many "innovations" from google are actually "acquisitions". But I don't care. Because its the marketing world. If you market well, you sell yourself well. Period.). And I also believe that they will keep up to their promise of providing a modern platform for web with Chrome.
Two things I like about chrome is their each-tab-in-a-sandbox model and the incognito mode and I am really note sure if anything exactly similar exists in other browsers. I know they do not exist as exactly in IE or FF. Although IE runs separate processes for each window but its a sandbox only for a window and not for tabs within the windows, so tab crashing in IE means it takes the whole window down.. although other windows keep running nicely. Firefox runs all its tabs and windows in one single process. The incognito thing too is something I know I could use for reasons I wouldn't prefer to mention here :) . And it helps me still retain my regular browsing history and cookies.
But there was one strange thing that I observed with chrome. When I went to change the proxy settings for the browser, it opened up the IE Internet Options dialog for me! Why? Why? They wrote a whole browser and didn't they find time to get their own proxy settings feature? That is too weird to me and I can't guess what google was thinking.
Then, it crashes too much. At least on my box, way too much. I know its beta, but that doesn't mean that you put just anything in there and you say .. "Hey it's only beta!".
And hey, the browser windows are not the regular windows. Try tiling them and they won't! Although they do cascade well.
We have seen the attitude shifts among competitors when something from the rival becomes a hit. Take for example IE. Mr. Gates used to think that tabs are probably the worst things to have in a browser. And that since a decade old version of IE, I wished I had tabs. The only reason I used Netscape for some time almost 8 years ago, was I wanted tabs. But well, Netscape never caught my eye and I managed with a little utility called MyIE2 which seemed to provide tab like functionality to IE windows, but it definitely lacked features like "Open in new tab" for links. Only reason i used that little utility was that I could "categorize" the pages that open into separate windows and hence not clutter my taskbar (and "show in groups" feature of Win XP taskbar doesn't go down well with me).
Well, IE6 came I thought we would have tabs definitely by this time and a Pop-Up blocker. Because some time before that Firefox had arrived with tabs and pop-up blockers and was becoming popular fast (I know few others had it already). I presumed IE6 would have both of them. But to my utter disappointment, Microsoft and something else in its mind when they wrote it. That made me entirely switch to Firefox. Well, but we saw IE pop-up blockers with SP2, but tabs were still nowhere.
I was done. I had switched to Firefox. By the time IE7 came, I had adapted too much to Firefox and IE7 just proved to be something that Firefox already had. And Firefox was adding things faster. IE was lagging behind. IE 8 is on the cards, and I once gave its beta a try. But I am not sure if IE8 becomes just another add-what-firefox-has version of IE, or would it be able to give something new... honestly speaking,... I don't think so.
And now we see Chrome. I don't know if I'll switch to Chrome any sooner. Firefox has grown a lot, has already built a strong community and support, and has won the hearts of people. Google has to go a long way to go before they can challenge Firefox. And they can't do that with their beta software's current conditions simply because of the lack of stability & many sites not displaying well.
I was reading news articles today and they were saying "Chrome outshines Mozilla". C'mon guys, what are you talking? Chrome has just arrived and Firefox has impressively evolved over the period. Chrome just can't outshine beta in just one day! Google might be great, but they aren't as great yet, people...!!!
The community also says that Mozilla has lost once again as Google didn't choose its engine for its new browser Chrome. Instead Google relied on Mac Safari's engine - AppleWebKit. Well, I don't know well.. but I don't feel that Google chose AppleWebKit just because it thought it was better than Mozilla's engine. May be this was the reason, but may be this wasn't. And if this wasn't, then probably they wanted to be "different" from the market leaders like IE and Firefox! The next strategy of Google could be to make features in its web applications more "available" to its own browser (or rather I should say, to the browser's having same engine as Chrome's) and less "available" to other browsers. Because having this strategy in place definitely puts more pressure on other browsers. And with Google already kinda "acquiring" the world wide web, Google's own user base could fast switch to Chrome, just because the application's they use (aka Google's software) seem better in Chrome. As I said, I only presume this, and has no official basis.
I know its early. But it has gotta be more. And I hope Google Chrome doesn't end up being a ceaseless-beta like GMail.
EDIT: I found this link in Aki Da's blog that tells about Chrome through a series of cartoons. Nice one. http://blogoscoped.com/google-chrome.
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