Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Google Chrome and Apple Safari

From biz.yahoo:

Chrome borrows liberally from other browsers running open-source software code, including Apple Inc. and Firefox, and Google officials said they planned to fully share Chrome code with other developers.

"We have borrowed good ideas from others," Google Vice President of Product Management Sindar Pichai said. "Our goal here was to bring our point of view, but do it in a very open way."

Because Chrome relies on Apple's open-source WebKit software for rendering Web pages, Chrome can run any application that runs on Apple's Safari Web browser, Pichai said.

"If you are a webmaster, and your site works in Apple Safari then it will work very well in Google Chrome," he said.

***Separately, note various themes in the "patent reform" debate which appear in an article on whether Google Chrome will succeed:

Jupiter Research's Elliott said: "Firefox is by all accounts a fantastic browser and still has less than 20 per cent browser share. That speaks volumes about how big an advantage Microsoft has by installing IE on PCs."

(...)

Nate Elliott, research director at analysts Jupiter Research, said: "In most cases the products that Google has delivered on its own have failed.

"To achieve success they have had to buy in services from elsewhere and not build them themselves."

(...)

David Mitchell, VP for IT research at analysts Ovum, said: "Internet Explorer is still used by about 60 to 70 per cent of people and there is a big chunk of the population who are remarkably reticent to change platform.


**UPDATE

InformationWeek links Chrome with cloud computing:

The desktop is dying. Long live the browser.

It's not that no one saw this coming. Microsoft anticipated the threat the browser posed to its desktop monopoly when it killed Netscape. But it was too late. Netscape metastasized and Mozilla emerged with Firefox, stronger than its predecessor thanks to the open source movement and its corporate supporters like Google, IBM, Sun Microsystems, and Yahoo.

At least as far back as 2005, there have been credible attempts to de-emphasize the desktop with Web-based media-sharing and application services like TransMedia's Glide. But such efforts have yet to reach critical mass.

Chrome marks the coming of age of cloud computing, or software as a service.

After 10 years as a company, Google has proven that simple, affordable, easy-to-use browser-based services and applications represent a viable alternative to sophisticated, expensive, high-performance, high-maintenance desktop applications. So, too, in their own way, have Amazon.com, eBay, and Salesforce.com, to name a few.

But 10 years into Google's proof of concept, it's clear the browser needs to be faster, more stable, more secure, more capable of handling complex graphics, and more flexible in terms of its user interface. Were the browser's shortcomings not so apparent, rich Internet applications, powered by technologies like Flash, AIR, Silverlight, and QuickTime, would never have been necessary.


***

The Independent spoke of motivation for Chrome:

Google justified this foray into the final area of the internet not yet under its control by saying it wanted something that would work well with its existing facilities. "Everything we do is running on the web platform," said co-founder Larry Page. "It's very important to us that that works well."

But others believe there was a very different motivation. In the test version of Internet Explorer 8, there appeared to be a feature that might block Google's targeted advertising. Given that 99 per cent of the company's annual revenue is made from advertising, this could hold the key to the company's sudden interest in expanding into the brow-ser market.

In many ways it is misleading to think of Google as an internet giant; it is primarily an advertising giant. By enticing users with free content and programs, it has been able to provide space for increasingly targeted adverts that have proved highly lucrative. Now 40 per cent of all online advertising is controlled by Google – a monopoly that it has good reason to defend.

1 Comments:

Blogger Mario Vidal Fernandez said...

I say that Google Chrome is excellent for speed, performance, and security. I was very impressed with Google Chrome and enjoy using it, however I just had to switch to Apple Safari. Both are based on Webkit and I believe that Webkit is the best rendering engine for any web browser. Apple does have it’s reputation for the iPhone being still the most popular and unmatched mobile device. Apple Safari, even though Firefox took control, has been gaining more market share then ever and Google Chrome as well.
My point is, Apple Safari should be the king of all web browsers when it comes to ease of use, performance, and speed. Google Chrome definitely takes over speed, however when it comes to their UI and structure of their web browser, Safari takes the lead.
You may read my blog post here about my opinion with Google Chrome and Apple Safari: http://www.boricuaspacepr.net/profiles/blogs/google-chrome-might-actually

7:41 PM  

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