Google to Launch Webkit Based Web Browser Called 'Chrome'

[iSee]

The point is, who cares? There are more mobiles than computers, its all about mobiles and ipods, not PC's and windows. Windows was yesterdays war.

No, the desktop is and will remain the centerpiece of people's technology usage. It's capabilities influence your other devices because there aren't a lot of things people want to do only on one device. The desktop should support and extend anything you do on your mobile(s).

Anyone who wants to own mobile has to have a strong desktop position as well.

 

[Analog Kid]

...
Granted, the beach ball will only last a couple of seconds and then Safari will unfreeze, but when this happens like a million times a minute
...

Whoah... trippy... time warping beach balls... minutes become months...

 

[chickenninja]

if it goona be chrome then it better have a grill

 

[iSee]

http://blogoscoped.com/google-chrome/13

Does Google think that Denmark has expanded to include Germany, Switzerland and the Benelux countries? (And parts of Austria and Hungary)

Wow, I didn't think they had it in them.

TODO before Sept:
1. Create an optimized JavaScript VM.
2. Annex Germany

They've already got a head start on their Oct. 1 milestone!

 

[gifford]

No, the desktop is and will remain the centerpiece of people's technology usage. It's capabilities influence your other devices because there aren't a lot of things people want to do only on one device. The desktop should support and extend anything you do on your mobile(s).

Anyone who wants to own mobile has to have a strong desktop position as well.

Thoroughly disagree. For many, listening to music, facebooking, ebay, and light research makes up the larger chunk of net usage, and is more suited to mobile devices. The central 'hub' will be Apples online offerings, not the desktop/laptop.


Traditional PC's will become just one of many devices that connect to your online 'hub'. Such as Apple tv, and all the other goodies Apple will come out with.

 

[okrelayer]

as much as I love browsers and the internet, desktop computing will always be the hub for all of our digital needs. iTunes/Zune Software, iPhoto/ Windows Pictures/Google Picasa, All of our documents of course.

Of course everything is going into the "cloud", and the web portal will continue to grow, but you still need a device that will connect you TO that cloud, unless we put a chip into a brains!

 

[Analog Kid]

Dunno, I've gotta vote bad news on this one... I'm all for spinning Balmer into a mad rage, but in the end this is going to lead to a more divided web. This smacks of MS/Netscape all over again as each gorilla starts trying to lock in web developers-- most of whom are helpless bystanders.

I'm imagining all those webkit specific extensions that weren't meant for use on the web suddenly being used on the web. I hope Apple can keep webkit focused and clean.

Google has too many conflicts of interest for this to turn out well. Ad blockers and traffic tracking are two things that have been mentioned already. Google is an advertising company that fancies itself an application provider which is now fancying itself a platform vendor.

I predict a few years of "don't be evil" altruism followed by years of enhancing shareholder value.

http://blogoscoped.com/google-chrome/13

Does Google think that Denmark has expanded to include Germany, Switzerland and the Benelux countries? (And parts of Austria and Hungary)

Now that is funny...

 

[mike12806]

90% Usage
7% Usage

Do the math.

I wasn't saying that they shouldn't develop for windows, clearly the windows market serves the majority of users in the world. What I was intending to say was that a company with the size, money, and engineering/tech talent that Google has should be able to co-develop for both platforms simultaneously. Especially given Googles penchant for developing for the mac and integrating it's products into the mac ecosystem.

 

[mike12806]

This is huge news and has the potential to change a lot of things. This "non-Apple" company has the potential to overtake a massive piece of the browser market, perhaps finally wresting control from IE.

Over time, the web is the direction everything has been going. Apple has been investing significantly in Safari and a establishing themselves to deliver web-apps like MobileMe.

Over time, many apps will be entirely web-based and platform independent.

arn

Agreed, although it seems a little odd to be front page when there is no mac version currently available! It will be interesting to see how many aspects of Chrome can function when the end-user is offline. I'm assuming it will integrate somehow with Google gears?? Or maybe it will contain a new type of caching system??? Google has been a "gamechanger" in the past in already established product markets, i.e webmail, search, maps, etc etc. Given Googles track record, I think we can expect Chrome to revolutionize browsing in some form over the next five years.

 

[winterspan]

I certainly agree with the opinion that anything that takes away marketshare from internet explorer is good, as is anything that works to enhance the standards-compliant web browser experience. I don't agree with many people's characterization of Firefox, however, I have to admit that I'm currently on a Windows XP machine, so perhaps the OSX Firefox experience is much inferior.

I think it's great that Google is making all these new components available as open source to be integrated into other browsers and applications, but I don't understand why Google is actually making their own browser implementation. They already heavily support Firefox, as does a huge part of the web community (in addition to Opera and Safari), so why would they want to compete with them for marketshare? IMHO, they should have just created these new libraries and components to be added into the next version of Firefox. Perhaps that will happen anyways, obviously with the exception of WebKit, and that would be good to see. I just hope a lot of people don't abandon Firefox for google's browser just as Firefox is starting to get a great hold on the browser market. Although a diversity of standards-compliant browsers is a good thing and puts pressure on Microsoft to fully comply with the open standards specs, I don't think diluting firefox's marketshare is a good idea. Remember, most of their money comes from Google searches in the browser, and it very important Mozilla continues to have decent funding for their projects. Also, It will make Internet explorer appear more dominant if all the other browsers in the market have a single-digit marketshare, even if they all added up to more than IE's share.

Anyways, it's good to see more progress. As a developer, it will be great to count on some of the new features being natively installed in new browsers e.g. Google Gears.

 

[TheBobGoat]

winterspan - google wants access to everything you do. They dont care if they dilute firefox's market share since using the google browser will provide them with more insight into your online life.

dont think for one second they are just trying to take marketshare away from someone else. things like this browser are what will enable google to charge even more to advertisers than they already do.

every company involved is interested in what you do with every minute of your life....so they can make money off of you (this includes apple btw)

 

[okrelayer]

i will definitely give Chrome a spin on my PC tomorrow. But i am in love with Mac's Safari/inquisitor combo. It will be hard to pull me away

 

[pgwalsh]

Over time, many apps will be entirely web-based and platform independent.

arn

Beyond that, I'll hypothesize that this will ensure google apps can be used in offline mode regardless of support by other browsers. If you can't use a google application offline with IE7,IE8, Safari, Firefox or Opera, you'll be able to use them with chrome. This will also push vendors to support googles apps for offline use. Think of it as a insurance policy.

So I don't think of this as Google launching just another browser, but google making sure there's full support for their corporate applications without relying on a third party vendor.

 

[ezekielrage_99]

All I can say is great viral marketing campaign "leak" for the new Google browser, IMHO the marketing department at Google was working overtime.

Hopefully it will chip away at the IE market share even more

 

[moz5835]

Cloud Conspiracy

Google getting access to even more of everyone's use characteristics and underlying information. Yay.

Count me out of this one.

/steps back


bnlv.com

 

[hulugu]

...When Google does it, I'm never quite sure if it's just something one group is just trying or if there is a grander plan.

I mean sure, Google is about web advertising, and it's straightforward to see how having a Google browser could enhance that. But on a grander scale this could:

* Be the Google "OS" -- well, really the Google application platform. For example, the Google apps are neat. But browser technology really limits just how useful these can really become. Control the app platform, however, and the sky's the limit. Of course, this would be a lot bigger than just the Google apps. They'd want to take a significant share of the client app platform market.
* If the Chrome platform can't reach critical mass, they will at least want to push other browsers to be a better application platform.

Microsoft/IE is in a tricky position. On one hand, browsers are assailing its market dominance from the left and right. On the other hand, MS simply cannot/will not provide the basis for its competitors' application platforms. They can play the stalling game, dribbling in real features (along with large cosmetic changes) at the slowest rate they think they can get away with--IE 7, IE 8--while at the same time pushing their own, proprietary web app platform as hard as possible (Silverlight, or whatever they replace that with). Time will tell if MS, Adobe, or Google, will win this war. Apple isn't a serious player here, but it will be interesting to see if they want to become one.

In some ways by virtue of 'Chrome' being based on WebKit, this just makes Apple's life easier. Good things in 'Chrome' will come to Safari much easier than it will for either Firefox or IE.

seems to me that like apple with the iPhone, google is creating it's own browser to be the native browser for the android platform... and this is the natural extension to the desktop.

An interesting point. As iSee rightfully wrote, is this part of a long-term strategy or just more of Google's "ooh-neat, shiny Beta" ADD? I'm beginning to think that this constitutes a coherent strategy, binding together everything from Google Docs to Android together.

*beat xix around the head with a dirty sock*

Why should it even matter. There is a common core, Webkit; the focus by Google is to drop having to hack their services around for every damn web browser under the sun. Come up with one browser that is linked to their website and avoid all the crap of incompatibilities entirely. The fact that there is a common code base means that any changes done to Webkit by Google will find its way back into Safari.

I think you're right. 'Chrome' gives Google a consistent platform by which to launch their world domination.

 

[gifford]

as much as I love browsers and the internet, desktop computing will always be the hub for all of our digital needs. iTunes/Zune Software, iPhoto/ Windows Pictures/Google Picasa, All of our documents of course.

All the above sounds more suited to an apple TV than traditional desktop.

 

[ProwlingTiger]

YAY! 1 more browser to add to the market. If its anywhere near as good as Firefox is for me, I'll consider switching. But until then, no need for another one.




I'm Dan, and I approve this message.

 

[zombitronic]

Nice to see someone rehashing that clean System 6 look.

 

[clevin]

Would you like to elaborate?
For future compatibility reasons alone Webkit would seem a wise choice.

thats bogus claim, there is nothing future proof about webkit, it supports roughly same, if not less standards than gecko, and its js is two versions behind. 1.5/1.6 vs 1.8, future proof? what future are you talking about?

pic is up.

Im not sure if webkit has to come with a non-windows UI? I will have to test it to find out.

I can see it probably tightly bundled with alot of google services. Just need to test app stability, functionality, overall speed and extensibility. Hopefully we can get a clean webkit based windows browser soon!

 

[alphaod]

Why?!

 

[macaron1]

I'm saving up for my Google hybrid car next year.

I am sure Tesco here in the UK already sells one.

 

[localoid]

Why?!

‘Some men see things as they are and ask "Why?" Others dream things that never were and ask "Why not?"‘ (George Bernard Shaw)

 

[Yvan256]

I wasn't saying that they shouldn't develop for windows, clearly the windows market serves the majority of users in the world. What I was intending to say was that a company with the size, money, and engineering/tech talent that Google has should be able to co-develop for both platforms simultaneously. Especially given Googles penchant for developing for the mac and integrating it's products into the mac ecosystem.

Nah, let the Windows users be the beta-testers.

 

[gifford]

thats bogus claim, there is nothing future proof about webkit, it supports roughly same, if not less standards than gecko, and its js is two versions behind. 1.5/1.6 vs 1.8, future proof? what future are you talking about?

I'm talking about the fact that some very big companies are backing webkit, and it will soon be the dominant browser engine.