“Google reportedly plans to convince computer makers to pre-install its Chrome Web browser on PCs, a move that would escalate the battle against market leader Internet Explorer from Microsoft,” Antone Gonsalves reports for InformationWeek.
“In addition, Sundar Pichai, Google VP of product management, told The Times that the company planned to launch a major marketing push behind Chrome once Google finished with beta testing and launched the final version in January,” Gonsalves reports.
“If successful, such a strategy could help the company boost use of the browser, which currently stands at less than 1% of Web users. Microsoft has more than 70% of the market, while Mozilla’s Firefox has almost 20%,” Gonsalves reports.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s Safari is the worlds’ #3 Web browser and currently holds 6.57% market share, according to Net Applications. Chrome is #5 with 0.74% share, just behind #4 Opera’s 0.75%.
Gonsalves continues, “Pichai also said that Google planned to launch versions of Chrome for Linux and Apple’s Mac OS X in the first half of next year. The current version of Chrome only runs on Windows.”
Full article here.
Mac users can read the nifty webcomic explaining google chrome by the talented Scott McCloud
http://www.scottmccloud.com/googlechrome/index.html
This is good for Apple. Google want to ensure open standards to guarantee access to its content. And Apple want open standards so their software can compete with PCs and Linux on a level playing field.
This is good for Apple and for people in general, get Google Chrome out there, and normal people will be looking more at alternate browsers, including Firefox and Safari.
It’s also good for propervweb developers. If we can dissuade sheep from using IE then we will eventually abandon making IE fudged stylesheets for our sites and M$ will be forced out of the game.
Internet Explorer works great. Always has. Why do you MAC lemmings insist on moving away from Microsoft’s magnificent innovations?
I’m a PC.
Your potential. Our passion.™
@ Zune Tang®
Then why do sites that were designed for IE6 not work with IE7?
MS – your frustration, our fault.
They may preinstall it but the people who buy off the shelf PC’s won’t use it.
1. They tend to like IE since it’s “standard” to the OS.
2. Many still believe that their OS is “Office”
3. IE is too heavily embedded in OS.
4. If they were interested in a better experience, they would have bought a Mac to begin with.
Google seeks to ink deals with PC box assemblers to preinstall Chrome browser
SWEET!!!
It’d truly make Windows a Chrome-plated turd.
I like Chrome. I use it on my PC at work. It’s fast. I’d definitely try it on the Mac.
From what I have seen of the Chrome, there’s nothing to compel me to switch from trusty Safari.
Chrome is as butt ugly as any other Windows browser with the exception of Safari.
There is a growing controversy over the fact that Google uploads and caches every word of every message written by GMail subscribers. Google even caches messages you compose but never send. And it also caches every message you receive, including mail from non-subscribers. Although Google claims to have no ulterior motive for this clear invasion of privacy (other than optimizing the speed of their system), I personally would like to say that Hell will freeze over before Chrome will be installed on my computers. The problem is not Google’s intentions, which I do believe are benign. The problem is that the U.S. government has already demonstrated its ability to force companies like Google and Yahoo to turn over anything that is asked for. To put it another way, both Yahoo and Google have already demonstrated their unwillingness to stand up to the government’s questionable if not unlawful requests for the personal data of their subscribers. I do not wish to install any software on my computer that caches my keystrokes on Big Brother’s hard drives, and I seriously doubt that I am the only one who feels this way.
@ZuneTang:
Believe it or not, some contributors to this forum are interested in having an intelligent discussion. What? They don’t have those on pc’s?
I don’t like Google. It reminds me very much of Microsoft, though Google has been clearly influenced by many things Apple. But the culture reeks M$ and it’s in their DNA. Pre-loading browser on OEM boxes, if that’s not a page from the tried and tested M$trategy, I don’t know what is. DOS, Windows Xs, IE, .NET etc. And yet, Google gets a free pass most everywhere. All hail Google just because they said they won’t be evil. Talk about sheep.
I dont care so much about Chrome. Im more interested in Spacetime (http://www.spacetime.com/) but for some reason theres still no Macversion even though they’ve said that its in the works ever since that website went online…
@: krquet
maybe think twice. Apple bundles safari…Your analyses is crazy and stupid.
Mymac4ever, I was impressed by the demo of Spacetime and am surprised that Apple had not already done the same for Safari.
Just last week I was thinking how great it would be if we could shuffle through our web pages in Safari like we do our songs in iTunes.
Spacetime does this and a lot more.
All hail Google just because they said they won’t be evil. Talk about sheep.
Power corrupts.
@arthur:
OEM, Safari, thanks for dropping by and imparting pearl of an analysis there with the word ‘stupid’ in the mix.
“Pre-loading browser on OEM boxes, if that’s not a page from the tried and tested M$trategy, I don’t know what is.”
@arthur
In fairness to krquet, Apple does not pre-load Safari on OEM boxes, just their own Macs and iPhones.
Any company with the reach and potential for abuse that Google has ought to make people nervous. When someone says ‘Don’t think of a monkey‘ what’s the first thing most people think of? So if a company’s motto is ‘Don’t be evil‘, what’s the first thing you think of?
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@qka:
If you think IE7 mangles a website, wait until you use “standards-complaint” (ha!) IE8 Beta 2. It’s a mess on websites designed for IE6/7. But on websites where the browser sniffers have been updated for IE8’s default standards mode, it renders OK. The only problem: Most websites, even W3C-compliant sites, are the former. And IE8 will create a mess of the Web.
When M$ starts forcing it down people’s throats through automatic updates and Windows 7, people will start looking for alternate browsers. Google (and others) have a lot to gain… watch for IE market share to drop below 60% after IE8 and Windows 7 come out and the Google Chrome marketing push.
Oh yippee. Another browser. Yawn.