Reprinted with permission © 2008 TreeTop Technologies
Google ChromeTM created a stir with its initial release, as the “browser wars” seemed to have settled into a détente between Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, with more than 70% of the market, and Mozilla’s Firefox, with just under 20%. After gaining 1% of the market on the first day of its release on September 2, according to web metrics firm Net Applications, it had fallen to 0.77% by mid-September, suggesting that many people tried it out of curiosity, but that it may not be gaining much traction.
But the fact is, that while Chrome offers some interesting advantages over IE and Firefox, Google might not even be interested as much in capturing browser market share as a primary goal. Many analysts are saying that Google probably launched Chrome more as a front end for its online applications, which compete with Microsoft’s Office software suite. This also might explain why some people have erroneously referred to Chrome as an operating system rather than a browser.
But while the shine may have dulled a little since Chrome rocketed out of the starting gate, there is no doubt that this new browser is intriguing. An article in InfoWorld, for example, notes that almost everything in Google Chrome “constitutes a rethinking of how you engineer a browser application.” One striking thing that Chrome does is to isolate each browser tab in a separate application process so that if buggy applet code at a web site or some other random mishap leads to a crash, chances are good that it will only take down the tab, not the entire browser. This, of course, is a critical concern for getting wider adoption of the company’s hosted applications offerings.
Also, Chrome has, in several tests, proven faster than IE 7, IE 8, Firefox 3, Opera and Safari. On the downside, much like IE 8, Chrome eats up a lot of memory and may be better suited for the next generation of PC hardware.
It may not be an IE-killer, but as one developer noted on the InfoWorld blog, this may be another example of Google’s inclination to push discussion of standards and best practices for the web as an application platform.
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Footnotes: From "View from the TreeTop" Volume 2 Issue 10 October 2008
