Google chief executive officer Eric Schmidt has admitted that the decision to launch its Chrome browser is a defensive one in its battle with Microsoft's and Internet Explorer. The irony is that it is likely to be Firefox, like Netscape before it, that will go down in flames.
In an interview with the FT today Schmidt of course said all the stuff about Chrome being a browser that was designed to make the web more secure/stable/faster/stronger et cet, but he also said that "there is a defensive component", which is of course designed to grab market share from Microsoft and Internet Explorer.
Its got a long way to go, but with Google's ever expanding digital presence it will likely fast make in-roads into the browser share of rivals. The latest Nielsen figures show that IE has75% market share followed by Mozilla's Firefox with 12%.
However, the figure for Microsoft is actually higher as AOL has an 8% UK share and its browser is just a version of the IE browser called AOL Explorer.
After that it is a single digit bun fight. The most surprising thing is that people still use that awful BT Yahoo browser, which has a 4% market share. I imagine it is glued to their PCs and if you try to remove it everything falls apart. We've all been there.
After that its Opera which has so little market share its users could probably get together in Starbucks (okay maybe a large'ish one). I remember downloading Opera and enthusing about it for a whole ten minutes. It might have longer, say 20 minutes, before moving on.
See that's what I'm talking about people are so shallow and it seems to me that the first of those people to switch to Chrome will be Firefox users - who tend to be early adopters and geeks. I've had a little play with Chrome like the rest of the herd and as reported everywhere it is fast. Really speedy like a Mini Cooper. Has anyone switched already? I'm guessing it is too early.
The question is when will Chrome really start to come into play? I'm pretty sure, and am betting Google is also, that this will be when its mobile platform takes off (I wanted some line here about Paranoid Android, but couldn't seem to think of one...).
This seems to be borne by Lehman Brothers analyst Douglas Anmuth wrote in a note that he sees Chrome's biggest benefit possibly coming on mobile devices if Google bundles Chrome into Android and gains distribution on other devices.
"We believe the simplicity and open-source nature of Chrome is well-suited to the mobile environment."
And why wouldn't it? Chrome mobile makes so much sense, it is after all the portable desktop that is the desktop of tomorrow...or some such crappola.
He is also predicts that Google will catch Chrome in two years, which could mean there is little future for the Mozilla browser beyond the fringes, which is a shame building up a market it has as a very decent alternative to those who do no want to use Microsoft's IE.
Nielsen Online's Rank Browser UK Unique Audience % Share of Unique Audience
1 Internet Explorer 75% 2 Mozilla 12% 3 AOL Explorer 8% 4 Yahoo! Browser 4% 5 Opera Internet Browser 0.33% 6 MSN Explorer Browser 0.22% 7 Flock 0.04% 8 Avant Browser 0.03% 9 Safari 0.03% 10 SlimBrowser 0.03%
The main advantage of Firefox for me, over any other browsers, is that it remembers what tabs you've been looking at and will load them for you when you next open it. Sooo useful, especially if your computer crashes.
But I'll be downloading Chrome, mostly out of curiosity, and if it's anything like gmail, I'm pretty sure I'll be hooked. I think the reason that Google do so well is because they are very good at working out what people want from the internet. Before gmail, everyone used hotmail and battled regularly with full inboxes and lack of memory. Not to mention huge amounts of spam. Google launched gmail with its practically unlimited memory space and heightened spam filters and loads of frustrated hotmail users jumped ship, me included. I wouldn't be surprised if Chrome is a roaring success - but I think your prediction of Firefox being crushed in the process is probably pretty accurate. Shame. :(
Have to hand it to Google for Gmail, I am stil a big fan. Very simple lots of space even if of late it keeps going up and down - could just be me.
The beauty of Firefox is all the plugins - I find more useful tools every day. When Crome has these FF support is likely to dwindle.
Maybe I'm just being a paranoid android (or even andriod Gordon!) when I fret about Google taking over the entire world. First search, then mail, site stats, online classifieds and now Google AdManager. OK so all the products are innovative and, for the most part, well executed but so much power in one co's hands is a worry.
The big question for me is - what is the UK digital industry going to do about all these innovations?
And what's the local newspaper industry going to do when Google Local and others swipe their classified ads life support?
Yes its the pluggins that do it, I just added a flash blocker, great for getting rid of all those unwanted flash movies.
Agree with much of the above, but Firefoxers are rebels by nature. They didn't flee the evil empire just to buy into another one. Chrome's new users will be pretty regular, non-expert web users - those who liked Google for its simplicity, and figure that Chrome will be equally idiot-proof.
On the subject of Google's now burgeoning power and influence, an undoubted twitchiness is developing amongst even non-paranoiacs. Google know it, and they want to head off suspicion.
Consequently, they've spun Chrome very ambitiously. They're not bragging, they're bleating - trying to kid us that one of the most aggressive moves in recent web history (hitting Microsoft right in the soft bits) is in fact a defensive gesture.
Defensive? My @rse.
I dunno about Firefox users - the maverick status is important but I think they're much more about what works.
There's been a lot of seemingly justifiable bleating about recent versions of Firefox. At the last place I consulted one of the favourite topics of conversation was "why FF has suddenly got so rubbish". A lot of these folks are big fans of GMail too so there's some respect there.
More important I think is what are we all going to do about Google? The main plank of their revenue is AdWords and I'm at a loss to understand why one of the UK's local newspaper networks don't build something simpler and offer CPC ads targetted across their pages.
Let clients top up in £10 increments, give them easy controls over targetting, allow them upload pics and videos of their offering and charge for clicks. The This Is network, say, surely has enough traffic to make this viable and there's still marketing muscle within the newspapers it owns.
Instead you get pages like this one:
classifieds.thisisnottingham.co.uk/.../default.aspx
Or an alliance of the magazine groups? Is anyone listening?
as a firefox user i've installed chrome to see what its all about
things i like: clean interface, intuitive, "incognito" mode
still like firefox for their addons (adblock plus - haven't seen this many ads in ages!) but inevitably im sure chrome will make its way onto peoples computers along with google desktop, google toolbar, google homepage, google earth, gmail, google video, google scholar...
what next?
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Gordon Macmillan
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