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The implications of Google Chrome
So, Google is coming out with a new browsers, while at the same time they are also responsible for a large part of both FireFox and Opera's budgets.
I think that this is a very interesting development. In particular, because Google thinks about the browser as a complementary offer to what it does, or as a baseline platform, not as the actual end result.
This get really interesting when you think that in this scenario, Google can leverage what are effectively Killer Applications in order to migrate people from one browser to another. If YouTube worked better with Chrome than with IE, I think it would be a very powerful motivator to move. And Google has dozens of such high value assets.
I am pretty sure that Google will produce plugins for anything new it creates, so other browsers can work with it as well (to do otherwise is to risk monopoly charges), but if used properly, it will allow Google to leverage its own power to produce its own de facto standards, which browsers will have to follow.
The focus on creating a browser which is focused primarily on allowing application development and hosting (vs. mere browsing) is likely to aid in setting the new baseline standard of what a browser platform should provide for the web applications that are hosted in it.
From my point of view, I think that this is going to allow Google to take a much more active role in shaping the environment in which their applications are living. From that perspective, it seems like a very natural step for them.
Comments
That's nice. I like a lot of stuff that Google produce but urgh... that's just a horrible name. I wonder who come up with that... somehow when I hear the word chrome the word wheel also pop up into my mind... and it's not a pretty picture. I definitely won't use it unless they come up with another name :)
The "browser" as we know it, was never meant to be an "application runtime" in the way we use it today. Browser makers can try to improve their JavaScript engine performance, application providers can try to invent plugins and extensions (Flash, Sileverlight, Gears...) but come to it: coding a "web app" can be a nightmare, where more than 50% of the development cost is wasted trying to work around browsers' limitations.
Mozilla XUL failed to become a standard, more efficient runtime engine. Thet .NET stack does not seem to become such a standard neither. So... there's an opportunity here, and Google has the size and presence required to create a standard.
I'd say Google Chrome might well be much more than "just another browser"...
I love google, but I'm not sure that making another browser can be really a good thing for developers. The nightmare of web development derives from discrepancies between browsers, and one of the major cause was IE that usually added more features in the past that are not in the standard. IF every browser would support only standard HTML and Javascript, life could be better.
There are a lot of people in the web with a very basic knowledge of computers, I constantly found friends that only knows IE 6.1, never update to the 7.0 version just because they do not know the existence of new version or even other browser (and they also have automatic update disabled).
I hope I'm wrong, maybe google is better than others and can really create a new web standard. We'll see in the future :D
alk.
This is interesting. If Google does do anything successful with their own browser, it will only highlight how big of a failure it is on Microsoft's part that they have really been unable to do anything unique with IE to advance their platform while at the same time not supporting web standards.
I think one thing to watch with chrome is whether they'll allow GWT to run with the JVM rather than cross-compiling to javascript. After all they already built up a delivery platform for their applications that allows them to build everything in java. So why not include a JVM in Chrome so that when run on Chrome, GWT apps, can run without the javascript intermediate step. Just wish they were using mono instead of java underneath GWT.
@Gian
Fortunately Chrome is using the webkit html engine which is what Safari uses. So that shouldn't change the situation too much for web devs (unless somehow this is a runaway success).
@Ayende
Google really can't force a site to only work better in it's browser, as you saw with IE and Netscape so long ago. If a site does happen to work much better in Chrome, it's open source and whoever can grab the bits they need to implement it in their own browser. Depending on the license chosen this may be an issue for the commercial companies but Mozilla would be unaffected certainly.
Arne,
Security implications, likely
@Ryan,
That is my entire point.
Google doesn't really care about the actual browser, but it does care if it can build more infrastructure to the browser so its apps would be better
This is the perfect level to start doing so, and encourage the other players to "steal" from them, which would cause my wider spread for the platform that Google needs to create RIA
Well, I'm installing chrome right now, we will see in the near future how it will change the web, surely Google has force an will to mold the way we perceived the web, so chrome will certainly play an important role in the web in the future. :)
Alk.
What did you mean by YouTube working better on Chrome? Faster?
The thing is, most ppl don't give a jack about browser performance and hence why IE remains by far far most popular browser, even though Firefox, Opera and Safari in fact in times more performant...
http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/
The technology is pretty sound. Now only if they change the name... but if the don't I am sure firefox will pick it up if thing work out well :)
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