5 Comments

Didn’t Google Already Have a Browser, Firefox?

September 2, 2008 by in Random with 5 Comments

The internet was lit on fire with news about Google’s “Chrome” browser that is based on the same WebKit engine as Safari. But, I was one of those people who never thought Google would put their neck on the line with a browser when they already had someone else doing the dirty work for them. The people doing the dirty work? The folks over at Mozilla.

In 2006 Mozilla announced that their for-profit division has taken in $72 million [#], primarily through the Google search box on the right-hand corner of the browser. Now that’s Mozilla’s cut, can you imagine how much Google made by all the traffic Mozilla drove their way?

Honestly why Google would want to have such legal exposure from Microsoft or any other deep pocketed organization that wants to sue for anticompetitive behavior. What does a custom browser from Google signify about Google’s relationship with Mozilla? Do you think the world needs another browser?

All I know if Google decided to go it on their own, they must have some really awesome features and integration with other Google services in the works.


  • dave

    Exactly right. I’ve become so established on Firefox with all of my extensions that I might call myself loyal. And there must be tens of thousands of others like me. What it indeed comes down to is, “do we really need another browser?”

    Anyway, for me, they’d need a handful of very important benefits that outweigh the benefits of Firefox. And I can’t see that as being anything more than unlikely.

  • http://mavrev.com Matt

    I can’t see myself switching to Chrome for my main browser, again the extensions come in to play, but I would more than likely use Chrome to run web apps such as Google docs and Gmail with the app. feature rather than Prism if it feels faster to me, uses less memory, and if I can eventually use Greasemonkey in one or the other. Right now though, I can’t imagine anyone switching to it full time.

  • worked

    I put Google’s Chrome in the same category as Camino for Mac. Nothing you haven’t seen before, nothing Firefox isn’t already doing a million times better. Also, I know it’s still BETA, but why launch this browser without a Mac version, is Google trying to make a statement?

  • Dan

    No, Google didn’t have it’s own browser (Firefox) so it hired the lead engineer away from Mozilla about a year ago…

  • chad

    I think the important part here isn’t them making their own browser… it’s the level/quality of product… they have the money and power to push trends in the market and the minds to do wonderful things. Once again, open source here is the magic keyword. They’ll be able to openly contribute and guide the market in a way we haven’t seen before.

    Browser developers are browser developers… they go by stacks of doc’s and standards. What if your mechanic rode a bike to work… yea he knows how to drive, but he rides a bike… to work on cars. The opposite end of the spectrum is where we wish our mechanic would sit… he lives, breaths, and most importantly drives cars and even helps develop new technologies to improve cars.

    This analogy is similar to the case in point. Google is doing things on the web that were thought previously impossible. Think back about 5 or 6 years… spreadsheet software that rivals Microsoft Office… in my browser?!. I think it’s important to keep this in mind as we’ve seen technology grow in wonderful ways when the people producing the cutting edge stuff are in every little nook and cranny of the process. (e.g. iPhone)

    Hopefully this will lead to better standards adoption across the board and make IE get their shit together while making Firefox realize that 10 seconds to load a browser with an about:blank page and a memory footprint of 20-30 megs is a bit …. well, sloppy.

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