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All that Glitters Today May Be Chrome
http://firefox.org/news/articles/1877/1/All-that-Glitters-Today-May-Be-Chrome/Page1.html
barbara mountjoy
Author of the book 101 Little Instructions for Surviving Your Divorce, Barbara has published articles and short stories in collections like the Cup of Comfort series. Her first novel, The Elf Queen, is available from http://Amazon.com and Dragonfly Publishing; the sequel, The Elf Child, comes out in 2011. Also in 2011, Deliverance, a romance from TWRP. By day, a family law attorney, at night, parent to three special needs kids, and a constant novelist. Find out more at http://awalkabout.wordpress.com 
By barbara mountjoy
Published on 09/2/2008
 
Just as Google has come to define a generation's experience on the Internet, through search and mail services, now the door may have opened for the company to replace that generation's web browsers as well, as Google's Chrome browser launched this afternoon...
Can Google Take on Microsoft Head to Head--and Win?

Just as Google has come to define a generation's experience on the Internet through search and mail services, now the door may have opened for the company to replace that generation's web browsers as well, as Google's Chrome browser launched this afternoon.

The entire process is laid out in spoon-feed-me form in a comic as clear and simple as the new browser itself.

One of the primary differences between this and other browsers is what developers are calling the "Omni box" -- an address and search box in one. As the user types in his search, potential addresses come up and can be clicked immediately, making access to destinations much faster.

Another great feature is the separate tabs for each topic/function the user engages. The browser allows each tab to be independent. If one tab crashes, the rest are not immediately dragged down to infinite slowness with it.

"By keeping each tab in an isolated "sandbox", we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites." the Google download site says. "We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built V8, a more powerful JavaScript engine, to power the next generation of web applications that aren't even possible in today's browsers."

The beta version of the program is currently available to download for Windows and Vista users in 40 different languages; Mac and Linux versions are under development, though no timeline has been issued for their arrival.

Chrome is being released as an open source project, so web developers from around the world can create new features for the program.

The question from the business community, of course has been, how does the launch of this new browser affect the Big Kahuna of browserdom, Microsoft, and to a lesser extent, other browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Opera, already struggling to hold their place in the market?

"It should come as no real surprise that Google has done something here — their business is the web, and they've got clear opinions on how things should be, and smart people thinking about how to make things better. Chrome will be a browser optimized for the things that they see as important, and it'll be interesting to see how it evolves." This, according to Mozilla CEO John Lily.

There's no disputing that Microsoft has a leg up on everyone because it can install Windows and Internet Explorer in each machine that leaves its factories. For the average user, using what's already handy is much easier than taking the time to find out what else is out there.

But this one may be worth their while. Chrome provides many of the best features of the browsers currently available, like IE 8's now infamous 'porn mode', in addition to tabs like Firefox. Early testers opine that Chrome  "is the fastest browser...on standard platforms." Indeed, the tests these folks ran showed that Chrome was "ten times faster than IE 7, and three times faster than IE 8." Conversation continues all over the Web as people begin to download and test the tech for themselves.

As with any new product, there are those who voice caution in playing with the shiny new toy on the block. The Webware column at CNET News warns potential users to read the fine print in the terms of service, which seems to imply that the browser may retain some of your content to use for its own purposes, such as advertising. And there's also the question of advertising itself--not yet a part of the browser, but it certainly seems as though the door remains open for the possibility.

Time will tell whether the shine of Chrome is the real deal or just fool's gold. But if Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Land, is right, as he says in an article at FT.com,  "Chrome is a vital ingredient of an expanding range of Google desktop software – including Gears, which enables web applications to run on a PC even when the computer is offline. This range will supply many of the features once associated with operating systems for anyone who is working with an online application. Eventually...it will become irrelevant to a computer user which operating system is running on their machine – an obvious threat to Windows."

And that may be the shiniest prize of all.