Google Chrome

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Uh-oh, lots of drama today on the intertubes related to the Google’s new project, a browser codenamed Google Chrome. The news hit the web, there was a lot of dust in the air, and Google removed the prematurely-put-online site. You can read more about Google Chrome in this nice comic.

And, as with all such hard hitting news people started speculating how will the internet react. Many of those people claim that Google will overtake browser market, and eat up all the rivals. Now, what I want to do here, is get one thing straight:

Everyone in Nivas uses Firefox as a default web browser. And as such we are well aware that Internet Explorer will never in the near future (10 years) be removed from use. Because, you see, Internet Explorer comes preinstalled with the Windows OS. Linux, currently holding about 1% of the desktop computing power, is irrelevant. Mac OS, even tho it shows strong growth, is still far away from making a serious dent in the Windows armor. So basically this means that vast majority of desktop computers have Internet Explorer running. And here is the bit that every zealous Firefox fan frequently forgets – when you install fresh copy of Windows onto a fresh machine, you will most likely use Internet Explorer to download Firefox. Combine that with the fact that of all the internet population only a small fraction are power-users. And regular users will not use their preinstalled browser to download another browser. You can argue all you want how IE is not safe, and it is bloated and whatnot, but my parents, and your parents, and other casual users will simply not use a perfectly valid tool to get to the same tool.

So in conclusion, even though I am looking forward to see this new Google’s child, the chances that it will make a significant impact on the market are slim to none.

As an added bonus, if Internet Explorer 8 turns out to be really good browser, I might switch back to it, and use Firefox just for Firebug. Until someone makes Firebug for IE =)