Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Thoughts about Chrome

There is a lot buzz about Chrome - Googles new Web browser. What I don't understand is why is there so much buzz about a piece of software. When a new version of Opera is released, in my opinion the most innovative browser of the last years, almost nobody cares. Now Google releases a browser and everybody is going nuts. I want to comment on some statements about Chrome (This will not be technical):

  • Chrome is a Windows killer: Despite the fact that I don't think the people at Google hate Microsoft, I think Chrome is just a new browser that gives users more opportunities. Firefox did not kill Microsoft either. Just to have a really powerful JavaScript engine doesn't make the choice of the OS redundant. By the way Microsoft is a dying giant anyway.

  • Google wants a big chunk of the mobile browser market: I think Google's growth strategy heavily relies on the mobile browser market. As a result for them it is very important that people have easy access to the mobile web and a good experience using it. Therefore a nice integration between Chrome on the desktop and Android/mobile Chrome would be helpful.

  • Google never hit a second home run: Which application from Google you use all the time? It is not Orkut, is it? Google is mostly late when they releasing a new application and normally not the first to develop something really new. Although things like Android look very promising they have yet to prove that they can be successful. The same applies to Chrome.

Personally I think on the desktop PC Chrome will have a hard time competing with the Internet Explorer. Just because a lot of people are to lazy to change their habits. Actually I would say it is more likely that Firefox users will try out Chrome than IE users. But the release of the new browser means that Google is putting pressure on the market leader what should be a good thing for us customers.

UPDATE: More about Google's mobile Strategy


1 comment:

Marco Laspe said...

The German Federal Office for Information Security warns to use Chrome because of security reasons.

1. They think that using a beta version of a software , especially a Web browser, is dangerous.

2. They say Google is collecting two many information from the user. They say this in regard to the other applications that Google has in its portfolio (Gmail, Docs, etc...).