Google's New Browser "Chrome" Revitalizes Browser War

Jeremyhfht, I see your point, and I agree... up to a certain point! ;-)

Not everybody are linux geeks (like me) or general computer-breathing geeks, there are people who just want to use the computer to get things done, things that do NOT relate to computers and they are NOT interested in anything else; imagine layers, historians and people not specially computer-savvy that just see there is already a web browser working there and they use it.

Why should they download another? Who is going to advice them to do it? (lazy Ms-feed sysadmins? I don't think so) And those can be high IQ historians or layers (or whatever) nevertheless.

Declan:
Do you mean you could do Youtube videos with Chromes' V8 powered Javascript?
(I don't think so)

I hate Flash, but there are things that can't be (still) be done with current Javascript code.

And I hate Javascript (not as much as Flash but nearly), but for the client side is the only practical way to go, even when I prefer to code in Java. (Applets tried and didn't make it.)

Let's see what the future brings. We have:

- Javascript: Crappy language but NOT CONTROLLED BY ONE COMPANY, AND much enhanced by Ajax techniques and JS engines optimizations such as V8 or SpiderMonkey. It can do everything BUT videos, videogames and/or 3D.

- Flash: Defacto standard for presentations, videos, videogames, fun special effects and graphical designer's web sites. Not specially loved by app developers,. It's CLOSED SOURCE CONTROLLED BY ADOBE. It can do anything a JS can, but in "a window" (it's not integrated with the HTML very well), with not so short load times AND requires the plugin.

- Silverlight: Microsoft PUSHED AND CONTTROLLED view of how to program the web client side. Say hello to Microsoft Network 2.0 and goodbye to the old and chaotic Internet that MS did'nt control entirely [ IE(Windows)->IIS(Windows Server) and thats it!!]

- HTML 5? in 2010!!!??? the war will be over by then.

I personally hope JS wins for the sake of open standards and Open Source.

Josvazg, I must disagree with your take on the effect laziness has on intelligence. I admit some people are born more naturally gifted and can afford to be "lazy" due to weak educational standards, but if 70% of the population is above average then welcome to lake wobegon. My personal definition of intelligence is this: "Intelligence is the capacity to expand your knowledge by learning combined with your capacity to analyze that knowledge". With this (more adequate) definition, laziness is contrary to the ability to gather knowledge. Therefore, lazy people are by definition not intelligent (or not AS intelligent) when compared to the least lazy members of our society.

I realize this is off topic, but I felt it necessary to discuss this misunderstanding. Carry on.

The difference between a web app and desktop app is further blurred by GoogleGears. Build a web app that just runs locally on you machine. No remote web server needed. Initially, designed to all disconnected web app usage and then reconnecting later, gears allows building applications that are hosting IN the browser. Thats the game changer. As is the super fast javascript engine (50x faster on my machine that IEs JS engine - 50 TIMES not 50%. ) That means that graphics, clacls, etc that you couldn't do before in a browser because they would CRAWL, now are doable. think of it as Web3.0

That's what Google could do with this.

Even tho JavaScript isn't my favorite language (Ruby and Java mostly) it is the lingua franca of web browsers and existing AJAX apps. TurboCharging the power plant that runs your browser is a great idea.

They have my vote.

Sorry, but I disagree with nearly everybody, article included.

I explain myself:

To the article author:

It is still to see if chrome will bite more browser percentage from IE or from Firefox.

I think Firefox is the most probable victim because most of the 72% percent that use IE today do it because it's already there and it works ('more or less'). They WILL almost never take the time to download and install a separate browser of their choice, it's too much hassle for them (and NO, it does not anything to do with their IQ).

Meantime, Firefox users and Linux users like me are using Windows a bit more now just to try out Chrome and see how it works and performs.

So basically they are getting the opposite effect now (taking people back to MsWindows again) till they come up with the Mac and Linux versions of Chrome.

Yes, they said they will 'soon' have the other platform versions. The question here is how 'soon'? and will they be as good and stable as the Windows version or will they lag behind (like Linux's Skype versions)? If so they will be helping Ms out in the end.

Now to Luis Dias:

For the IQ thing, lazy does not mean stupid, just lazy. They will not bother to install a browser if they already have THE browser most people use already installed and working well (or so they think/are told)

And...
"war against Windows itself"?
Making Chrome to work first and best with Windows only?
They they will get the opposite effect, most people relying on MsWindows just to be able to run Chrome reliably.
I think your point here does not hold either.

Now to Jase:

Web applications do not mean internet applications.

For instance you could have your own "google doc" like solution on YOUR corporate servers behind YOUR firewall.

In our company most corporate applications are web based BUT corporate (intranets), run in OUR own servers. And they beat the client-server ones hands-down because, for starters ease of deployment and later management.

Of course you should not run things or put your data in Google (or anybody else's) servers, that's why you should have your own servers.

To dontmatter:

The gap is narrowing to what can't be done as a webapp and has to be done as a native app. Games are a good example and AutoCAD and alikes are other.

For anything else, and specially corporate internal apps, web apps are the way to go, but ON YOUR SERVERS, not on the internet, as I said before to Jase.

to Skip Church:

Web apps don't mean internet apps, as I said before.

You have plenty of opensource and free (as in beer) web apps out there that are way cheaper to deploy and maintain that many client server solutions.

LAN hardware is getting cheaper by the day, so setting you own network with your servers that 'feed' your school, company, library, etc is a good way to save money. Even or specially if your internet connection is not so good.

ill tell u why the world cant live on web apps alone...
im from south africa, and im running on a 384kb dsl line.
i dont see our telecoms getting much better anytime soon, therefore this kind of programming (old school - resource friendly) is appreciated.

i completely agree with dontmatter . .. there is no reason why native apps and browser apps coexisting together . . . some ppl would prefer the added security of native apps . . . some would prefer the browser apps. Luis . . . your words seem a bit . .. nihilistic in nature . . 'those of low intelligence'? 'sorry for those in rare exceptions'? man, most of those 70% just don't know how to customize or use their computer because their afraid of contracting viruses, a threat microsoft makes more confusing by not explaining it correctly. just because they don't know how to use a computer doesn't mean they are of low intelligence. also, as a side note: people may prefer native apps more than browser apps because their connection might not be up to the task of running full on browser apps in the future.

Luis - Were you born yesterday, or something? Unfortunately for the fans of "the internet is the platform", not everyone is interested in having all applications being web-based because a basic tenet of security is that you cannot trust the cloud. Many governments, companies, and individuals have learned from years of experience that your important files should ALWAYS stay behind your firewall on your own computers, and your most important files are on a "sneaker net" and NEVER touch the internet. For example, anyone who uses Gmail for any business purposes that compete with Google deserves to be bankrupted.

Luis, you may have choice at home but most office workers are forced to use IE.

What Luis Dias says.

@Luis Dias:
This guy was just trying to get traffic with a sensationalist title. Ignore 'im.

As for native apps vs web apps, I'm a native apps guy, but I don't see why both can't coexist. I want both. I can eventually see the browser becoming powerful enough to be able to do high-end games, so in that case you might not need the native apps, however it doesn't mean the future will manifest itself that way. There are other alternatives.

[...] Ever since then, many questions have arisen, but one seems to have become the main issue: Is Google directly attacking Internet Explorer and Microsoft? Some say not, many say yes. Chrome (www.google.com/chrome) was made for specific … Original Ivory King [...]

"What other browsers? Since the only supported platform is Windows as of this writing, the finger is pointed clearly at Microsoft."

Wow wow wow! Were you born yesterday or something? Are you confusing OSes with Browsers? IE may have more than 70%, but that's the lower IQ 70% (sorry for those in rare exceptions), for anyone in the know use either Safari, Firefox, or even Opera. And there are others, too. There is choice, you can download them for free and they work, so I don't know what are you babbling about.

The issue with "war against windows" theme in the web is not about Google Chrome against Microsoft Internet Explorer. You got that completely wrong as well, for if it was it, they had Firefox to do the job (and it is doing magnificently). The issue is GC against, get this, MS Windows itself!

Yes, this browser war is a fight between proprietary web formats against open standards, and if the latter wins, then google (and others) can make web apps so good, fast and even more reliable than desktop apps!!, with the extraordinary charachteristic of not depending on the OS you happen to have. If you have a browser on it, you can work with it. That simple!

It's a revolution. And it won't happen overnight, of course. But it sets the stage for what's going to happen in the next decade. And if things go as they seem to be going, then MS is going to lose.

Big time!

>For instance you could have your own “google doc” like solution on YOUR corporate servers behind YOUR firewall.

I really do have to ask "Why?". I've been programming for 30 years and all I see with Chrome is it returning very much to the client/server model.

All that's happened in the meantime is that we've spent 10 years wandering in the web app world to get back to where we started.

Google's programming language is JavaScript. JavaScript runs horribly slowly in most browsers (compared to compiled code) so therefore they focus on making their own applications run faster. Talk about re-inventing the wheel.

Other traditional languages could have been pretty portable by now - the CLR used by Microsoft isn't far off. D-HTML & CSS does something akin to X-Windows (open standard rendering format) etc etc. The development environments for native apps have always been ahead of web apps. Maybe they are catching up now.

I've not read any specific benchmarks recently but I'd still guess that a C# native program runs rings around JavaScript.

The reason corps like web apps:

o No local installation therefore less support costs
o Global/remote access
o Central update

No where unfortunately in there does it say "Best application". As impressive as GMail is, it still can't compete with Outlook for sheer productivity. And it also probably took a huge team to write. Web apps still are x2 (guess) times more difficult to write than native apps.

And web apps all fall down when you step outside the browser and want to do anything slightly tricky like talk to hardware.

So I like Chrome, I like web apps (just released one www.whatpub.org) but let's not fall for the silver bullet classic mistakes.

you can do youtube videos with chrome though . . .

yes, but youtube does videos thanks to Adobe's Flash
No Adobe plugin = No Youtube

thats not what you said. what you said was that you couldn't run youtube videos on Chrome's JS V8 engine.
But yes, I do agree with you on the fact that open-source is much better than closed-source, mainly because it benefits us, and it benefits the creators. (ex. Mozilla Firefox) I agree with you that Adobe should begin to make Flash open-source as well.