Google’s Chrome: What is it for?
Today, Google announced a new project - a web browser called “Chrome.” (A Windows-only beta will be launched on Tuesday.) This could be a major transition for Google, taking them right into the desktop space and fighting Microsoft head on where Microsoft reigns. It could be, but I don’t think it is.
Instead, I suspect that, at least for now, Chrome will serve as something of a reference design for other browsers. Google has a vested interest in technically solid browsers that people want to use. Until browsers have minimal overhead, almost never crash, and are made incredibly speedy, web applications, such as Google’s Docs or GMail, can never take off.
What this means is that even if Google is not really interested in dominating the web browser market, it still makes sense for them to have their own browser. This browser can simply serve as a way for Google to introduce and demo new features they would like to see in every browser. Plus, by making it open-source and saying that “We hope to collaborate with the entire community to help drive the web forward,” they are just inviting people to take their work and add it to every browser.
This theory also explains their heavy emphasis on technical details of the browser, rather than user features. If you want to win the average user’s desktop space, you focus on cool features, not stability. If, instead, you want to push underlying technologies into other browsers, you focus on technical details.
It still remains to be seen if the open-source license they choose will be one that enforces copy left or not, but I think it is safe to say, if this theory is correct, that as much of it as possible will be released under a license that does not enforce copy left, meaning that Google’s code could be made part of closed-source code.
We will not know Google’s true intentions with Chrome for some time, but I am inclined to believe this is not about dominating the browser market, but, rather, about pushing all web browsers forward and making them work better with web applications - particularly Google’s.
September 4th, 2008 at 5:07 am
Hello
I totally agree with you, despite the fact that Chome could be in future a very good sand box for Google APPs or as we traditional said, an OS. I think that what Google really whats is the control of browsers development. Ok, they could try do that with firefox, but doing that they could be accused of abusing or something like that
Paulo Calcada
September 7th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
It’s certainly not part of the war against microsoft, that’s just insane. I think your theory has a good chance.
September 15th, 2008 at 3:25 am
I don’t completely believe that Google’s true intentions are just to improve the current web browsers and make them more efficient to handle Google’s and other apps. If so Google would just have released a source code which would be platform independent like other open source software foundations do. It’s been long enough and we still don’t have a Chrome browser for Linux. The way Google has done it, as in launching the beta version just for Windows is clearly a step aimed at targeting the mass audience; get them to use Google chrome and making them believes that Google are the best vendors of software available. It’s more like a publicity stunt and is so unlike what google once stood for. I don’t understand how they could show such apathy to Linux, the OS they totally depend on for their research, in their server farms, etc.
September 19th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
@Abhay Kalla:
A platform-independent implementation would be much slower. Speed can only be improved when leaving the cross-platform paradigm, and developing highly specialized code for a specific platform.
And, Google does not show apathy for Linux, in no way, but shows sympathy for the majority of today’s computer users, working with Windows.
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:59 am
Google has released chrome in a hurry without doing last minute checking. A lot of security vulnerabilities are coming up though. And I also see they’ve released an updated version of chrome just after one week of the chrome launch. Im sure more updates are to continue.