“In an uncharacteristic burst of modesty, Google co-founder Sergey Brin says we should think of the company’s new Chrome Web browser simply as a worthy challenger to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Mozilla’s Firefox, and Apple’s Safari. ‘What we want is a diverse and vibrant ecosystem,’ Brin said at the Sept. 2 Chrome launch. ‘We want several browsers that are viable and substantial choices,'” Stephen H. Wildstrom writes for BusinessWeek.
“Don’t believe it for a second,” Wildstrom writes. “Although the first version of Chrome has a half-finished feel and runs only on Windows, a close look at its features and underlying design reveals a far more dramatic goal. Chrome aims to take on not just Internet Explorer’s 75% share of the browser market but Windows’ dominance of the desktop itself.”
Google “didn’t expend much effort on what traditionally has been the heart of a browser, the rendering engine, which creates viewable pages from the text, images, and instructions supplied by Web servers. Google just adapted the open-source WebKit browser engine used by Safari,” Wildstrom writes. “So where did Google engineers really hunker down? The browser’s Task Manager… task management is a core component of operating systems, such as Windows or Mac OS X. And that’s my point: Chrome offers many of the features of an operating system.”
Full article here.
Jeff Cogswell reports for eWeek, “Google made the right [rendering engine] choice: Instead of starting from scratch, they picked an existing open-source rendering engine that’s mature and packed with several great features such as speed. The one they chose is WebKit, which, interestingly enough, was developed by Apple (which in turn based its work on an early code base called KDE HTML Layout Engine). Apple’s own development led to the engine that is the basis of their Safari Web browser; they then made the engine open source (WebKit), and now Google is basing its engine off that.”
Cogswell reports, “This means the rendering in Chrome isn’t buggy and slow. It’s fast, and it works.”
Much more in the full article here.
“Google co-founder Sergey Brin says we should think of the company’s new Chrome Web browser simply as a worthy challenger to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, … “
Challenger to I.E.?
Geez, talk about setting the bar low.
iCal me: 2015…the year Apple buys Google.
Since Google hasn’t seen fit to release Chrome for OS X yet, I fail to see how this is Mac-related news. The mention of Apple does not make it Mac News…time to tweak those Google Alerts, guys.
Ottawa Mark, Chrome is built on WebKit. Do I need to say anymore?
I read the comic. Chrome is a big step forward, and almost defies the term “web browser”, because it aims to be much more than that. If Google can keep this moving it will be big, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple apply some of Chromes engineering to Safari. It’s certainly no OS, so replacing Windows anytime soon isn’t likely.
@Spark: They are actually quite busy making WebKit build with V8. Also, they are changing the so that WebKit respects Chrome’s multi process design.
@Ottawa Mark:
WebKit is an important Apple-developed software. Yes, this is Apple news. Plus, that it’s another good challenger to the dominant MS-IE.
At work I use an XP box 🙁 … i installed chrome and I am going to use it as my default browser. It’s fast….really fast…better than safari on the PC and firefox in terms of rendering web pages…other areas like security and such I don’t know..but so far its quick…
I for one am becoming more and more wary of Google (and others) as they gear up to attempt to shove the “cloud” down our throats. Oh yeah, it’s all fun and games now with free Google this and free Google that, but the goals of the folks that bring you the “cloud” are to diminish the relevance of your desktop as much as possible. Eventually, all of your computing needs handled by the cloud is clearly the Google goal.
Given the extended view of the cloud computing model, most people won’t need a fully capable computing platform, just a thin client running, oh, CHROME.
On the one hand this might be great for folks who really don’t care, but horrible for system and OS vendors like Microsoft and Apple.
Advantages include the fact that your applications and data are anywhere you are as long as you have your cloud device, but sooner or later this won’t all be free.
I looked at a “cloud” based time keeping application the other day. Looked pretty good. It was $20/month though. Not that much, until you realize they don’t provide invoices. There’s another company that provides invoicing for another $20/month. So at that point I’m looking at over $400 per year just to do time keeping and invoicing and I’m nowhere near the functionality of something like Quicken, QuickBooks, or MYOB.
And this is just the beginning. The cloud folks see a future where software is a utility like your Cell phone services, or Cable TV, or gas and electric, where you are essentially subscribing to software and paying through the nose *forever*.
Google may seem all friendly and Googligood right now, but I see them as the fricking technology Anti-Christ with a smiley face mask on.
FIGHT THE CLOUD! It took us a long time to get the freedom of powerful independent computing devices. It’s insane to go back to a centralized model of computing where we don’t control our data and applications.
There is an idea that web browsers and OSs are melding into the de facto OS of the future.
As more and more applications are written to operate via the internet cloud, the importance of the browser comes to the fore, and then you wrap advertising around the whole thing.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt has stated that Google is an advertising company first and foremost, not simply a search engine.
This pertains to Apple in a strategic sense for the future by combining the strengths of both company’s abilities to develop hardware/software solutions in tandem, thus challenging Microsoft’s eroding domination of this space.
I see it pertaining to Apple not as “combining the strength of both company’s abilities” but as making the Apple OS and box completely irrelevant.
Keep your eye on Android. Android + Chrome + Google Apps is vastly more powerful than you might think.
Dig into Chrome. A whole lot more there than just WebKit. It kinda works like an OS with it’s own built in scheduling and task management.
This isn’t about IE. Google doesn’t give a shit about IE. IE is just a path to Google’s current services.
This is about taking on OS X and Windows and LINUX head on. Hell Google Chrome + Google Apps is better than LINUX for most people already.
@StarkReality
I hadn’t read your post before mine. (Really!) Just didn’t want to appear derivative of yours.
Yes, we are talking about the same idea, just from different sides of the equation.
I share your concerns, yet will allow for a brighter possible future.
I really don’t believe that Steve Jobs would allow Eric Schmidt to sit on the Apple board, or give Google the ‘keys to the kingdom’ via WebKit, if he thought their intentions were nefarious.
Convergence of two companies with the same goal in mind: challenge Microsoft, the pretender to the throne!
(BTW, didja see the new ‘Get a Mac’ ad with PC as the old monarch? Brilliant!
)
@IWII
Oh yeah, if it works out as you say it’s sweet!
If you’re right, it could be sweet. I really like the Google Apps. I love popping open Google’s word processor, writing down a bunch of stuff, even working on actual papers and then having my work stored neatly in my Google Folders. I can close my Macbook, and wander off to another client, sit down at one of their computers, Mac, PC, or whatever, and just pop my folder open and there’s my document. It’s great.
It’s all nice and free right now.
I just don’t want the future to be Google as the new Microsoft of the Internet.
It’s not just the Googles of the world. I talked to a friend the other day about how a major metropolitan school district is looking at moving all of their administrative functions to a major provider’s cloud. They would replace both Mac and PC desktops and laptops with thin clients.
From my point of view, the desktop, the general purpose computer, is currently under assault. FIGHT THE CLOUD!
@John Gee:
October 21, 2015?
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/BttF reference
http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/google/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=210500375
“Google Chrome Reflects A Desktop In Decline
After 10 years as a company, Google is making the Chrome browser key to the coming of age of cloud computing, or software as a service.
By Thomas Claburn
InformationWeek
September 5, 2008 06:30 PM
Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Chrome
A week after Google released a Web browser of its own called Chrome, it’s clear that despite the frailty of Chrome’s beta code, there’s a seismic shift occurring in the computer industry.
The desktop is dying. Long live the browser.
It’s not that no one saw this coming. Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) anticipated the threat the browser posed to its desktop monopoly when it killed Netscape. But it was too late. Netscape metastasized and Mozilla emerged with Firefox, stronger than its predecessor thanks to the open source movement and its corporate supporters like Google, IBM, Sun Microsystems, and Yahoo…”
Apple tried to force a “Cloud” model on the iPhone as well, but WE (the vocal jerkority) demanded stand alone applications for the iPhone.
Look at the rogue’s gallery of Cloud supporters in that article though. Those are the companies that stand to make $$$ if they assassinate the desktop.
Hopefully I’m completely wrong here. Still, I say, “FIGHT THE CLOUD.” Bumper Stickers and T-Shirts are being designed now.
The sad part is that so many chairs are now going to meet a tragic and violent end to their short, little furniture lives.
“Google’s not a real company. It’s a house of cards.”
“I’m going to f—ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I’m going to f—ing kill Google.”
– Steve Ballmer
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. – Arabian proverb
I apologize for neglecting the WebKit connection (hence the reason this is is Apple-related news); sadly ironic that it’s only on Windoze! Even Sergey Brin called that “embarrassing”!
Cloud-based computer has been discussed for YEARS (before it was even called cloud-based computing). But the idea has always suffered from various problems, some of which may be close to being solved, others not so much. Among them: It’s slow. It’s sometimes unavailable. There are security concerns (anyone can steal your files from anywhere). Version control can be tricky (.Mac/MobileMe have issues with this, for example). Proprietary options are a huge issue; you can get stuck with a service you don’t like, with no good way to get out. Prices can go up and up, and you may be forced to keep with it because there’s no easy way out. Companies with large cash farms from cloud computing have less reason to improve once they are established; therefore innovation suffers.
The advantages: You can work on your files anywhere. Documents stay in sync. Devices stay in sync. Usually there are no upgrade fees when the developer improves the application(s).
Is it worth it? To the extent that it’s free or cheap, maybe. But beyond that, I think I prefer the current model.
@Military Police…
You’re right of course… but this time it’s a conspiracy! Sure we’ve have variations on centralized computing as far back as the 70s when everything took place on the mainframe and all we had were dumb terminals.
We were all happy to finally start getting personal computers to give our data and apps autonomy.
They (the cloud conspirators) tried to suck us in again with so called “thin clients.” The only company that had any significant success here was CITRIX. I still run into CITRIX based services here and there to this day.
Now they’re back with their fancy happy new word, “Cloud.”
And this time we have the likes of Google offering free applications like sugar cubes to the unsuspecting masses. It’s like drug pushing. Oh sure, it’s free now but when the time comes, suddenly the cloud will morph into the Terminator Exoskeleton and Google will say, “Only .05 per appointment and only .05 per contact. Each document is only .25 to store online.” And will be sitting there with a stupid thin client “i fricking device” that can’t do anything but store crap on the cloud.
FIGHT THE CLOUD!
Everyone wants to make money. Except for those nutty open source guys. Balmer says they’re commies. Heh!
My fear is that even the tried and true software developers will start moving their products to the cloud.
Look at the applications you use constantly and imagine if those apps moved to the cloud and you having to pay some monthly subscription fee.
That sucks for you, but it is super cool for software companies. No more dealing with piracy. You don’t get a copy! You can’t pirate. No more constantly pushing to come out with new versions just to get a constant revenue stream. You’re stuck paying a subscription so they have a constant revenue stream and they can add features and bug fixes iteratively, basically the way Google develops now.
The entire model of wealth generation on the Internet will shift to cloud based services. Desktop apps become a thing of the past. The only people with real computers are the people with the servers.
It will be too expensive for most of us to pay for as much capability as we have now.
I also see this as the end of IT departments as we know them. Corporate IT people will just be service coordinators if they exist at all as the average office manager can easily pick service packages off the net for her company.
FIGHT THE CLOUD!
Living with the cloud dows not have to mean the same as living in the cloud.
What I mean is that just because your data is in the cloud, doesn’t mean that you can’t also have a local copy.
MobileMe is a great example of this. The data on my Powerbook, is the same as it is on my iPhone, and if I want to access that data via a web browser, it’s there as well.
However, if any of those devices lose their connection to the cloud, it’s not as if that data is inaccessible.
“Cloud Computing”
Because companies are too afraid to call it by its real name:
SKYNET ! ! !
Uhh… Sorry. I meant, “does,” not “dows.” 😮