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Will Google Launch A Browser?
ServeYourWorld writes "The
New York Post is reporting that 'Based on the half-dozen hires in recent
weeks, Google appears to be planning to launch its own Web browser and other software
products to challenge Microsoft.' I took a guess and did a whois search for Gbrowser.com
and indeed Google Inc. is listed as the registrar."
Opera already does that if you enable the Google TextAds feature... with Google, no less.
And Firefox has an extention to do it too...
Firefox already does that. (Well, it doesn't exactly track you, and it only displays relevant ads if you want it to.)
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Back in July Dare Obasanjo noted on one of his blog posts that Google was hiring a bunch of people from the IE browser team and couple of Java guys from Sun.
/. is irrelevant.
Even Netscape 4 sent everywhere you surfed to a central server, although of course not with the purpose of serving ads. Remember "What's Related?"
-Letter
Description: [reply] Opened: 2003-11-23 05:22 PDT
I seen this idea mentioned a while back on Slashdot and thought it'd be worth
sharing here.
Today I'd say that Google is a much bigger name than Mozilla or even Netscape
however, like Netscape, Microsoft currently has their eye on Google and they
want to make MSN Search as popular as Google is now. Google shouldn't make the
same mistake as many other competitors and wait until they're rapidly losing
market share before reacting, they need to act now and doing so could benefit
both Google and the marketshare of Mozilla.
I'd not be surprised if the version of IE shipped with Longhorn would have an
MSN Search toolbar so similar to the Google Toolbar and perhaps even modified IE
so that the Google Toolbar wouldn't work.
However, if Google were to actively promote a Google branded version of Mozilla
(Firebird would probably be the best to use) which at the bare minimum just
included all the current Google toolbar functionality (bug 218126) and promoted
it (features like tabbed browsing, type ahead find would be features that set it
above the normal Google toolbar for IE) this would see an increased usage of
Gecko based browsers, and would get Google users used to the concept of
downloading a new browser before MS cuts off their air supply.
Of course I'd hope Google would do one better and make the Google browser more
than just Firebird with a tacked on toolbar, it'd be good to see it take
advantage of the toolbar customisation features in the toolkit so that if you
don't want the entire toolbar you can drag just what you do want to wherever on
the other toolbars you prefer. I do think a separate toolbar download should be
provided too for those that prefer to use the Mozilla.org (or other
distributors) builds.
Features like tabbed browsing would be an excellent companion to any regular
Google users toolbox, being able to launch search links in background tabs is an
invaluable feature. Eventually once most people prefer downloading the Google
browser, the Google toolbar for IE can be phased out to save development costs.
Google could take this marketing idea further and offer customised versions of
the browser for ISP's that wanted to use their own branded search pages that
were powered by Google (e.g. search.netscape.com)
Advantages for Mozilla.org:
1) Increased market share for Gecko based browsers due to promotion by one of
the best known names online
2) People's base expectations of what a web browser has to offer will be raised
above the current bar set by IE
3) A higher percentage of Gecko users will means webmasters can't ignore
standards compliant browsers anymore which will benefit all Gecko uses whether
they use the Mozilla.org builds, Google builds, Netscape 7.x, etc
Advantages for Google:
1) They're not relying on Microsoft to not break the Google toolbar
functionality in future versions of IE
2) They don't have to tie people who want Google Toolbar functionality to Windows
Advantages for IE users:
1) They're more likely to hear about better alternatives to IE either through
Google or their Google using friends.
2) Even if they still choose to use IE then no doubt Microsoft will be more
likely to improve their product if they see their market share declining
------- Additional Comment #1 From David Hallowell 2003-11-23 06:05 PDT [reply] -------
After doing a Google search for 'Google Browser'
(http://www.google.com/search?q=Google+b rowser&sou rceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0)
I found a blog posting by Simon Willison
(http://simon.incutio.com/archive/2003/0 7/17/theGo ogleBrowser) which credits the
idea to Anil Dash (http://www.dashes.com/anil/index.php?archives/006 726.php)
Bart, is this something Mozilla Marketing think is worth following up with? I
think
Behind the pubic bone, near the urethra. Go in about 3 inches with your palm up and make a "come here" gesture with your finger.
Tempted to add some sort of joke here, but I'm shooting for "Informative" so I can get a little karma.
It's not just you. I'm pretty much Googled-out. I also think it's a big mistake for Google to try and be all things to all people. They should focus on their search engine only. Think about how much it can still be improved. Even Google only indexes a small fraction of the pages on the WWW. About 3.3 billion which comes to no more than 10% of the publicly indexable web. Even the 3.3 billion they have indexed are not complete; some are nothing more than the URL. But I guess they have shareholders to answer to now so they feel they have to innovate in new areas.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
Oh yeah?
Try searching for 'porn' on google:
Free Porn & Hot Sex - New
The #1 Sex pick of The King
XXX Free Porn here - 100% Free!
Nudes XXX
Super girls. Video and photo online
Only for you and free
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
Of course they delete messages. All it says in the TOS is that messages may not be deleted instantly, because it's a distributed storage system with a lot of backups.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
see the last comment in this bug (see the dates, too) (cant link, bugzilla dont want to be slashdotted)
5 72
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=226
I'm from Argentina: Tango, Asado, Mate, Gaucho, Maradona, YPF
Well, they were taking over marketshare like crazy (even before being bundled) and were inventing new technologies faster than the rest of the company could keep up. So they shut them down to ensure that web apps wouldn't take over the rest of their business. They certainly didn't stop developing IE because they couldn't afford it. I don't know about you, but grabbing a few guys that can eat away at the rest of Microsoft's business doesn't sound like such a bad idea to me ;)
Apparently I'm "not authorized" to view that bug. Probably most others are too. Could you post details?
Just because it doesnt display images doesn't mean it cant translate html.
Depending on the criteria you use, you could call lynx a more modern browser than IE6.
It has been developed more recently (Feb 2004 last major release)
Like every other browser in the world, results will improve if the webmaster devotes some time to it.
It works pretty well for strict xhtml.
> So we can find ourselves in a situation where
> one popular browser's (or rending engine) tics
> and weirdness dictates how to write webpages
> like IE does now?
As a core Gecko developer, I promise you that we are committed to fixing any tics and weirdnesses that deviate from published Web standards, and this will remain true even in the unlikely event we find ourselves with a monopoly. For Web developers, this means that if they rely on bugs of ours that deviate from Web standards, then we will eventually break their content.
Because we're open source, you don't even have to trust me. If you ever feel that Mozilla.org is abusing its position, you are welcome to gather followers, fork the code and carry the project on in whatever direction you wish.
They're a public company now; depending on the details (with which I'm not familiar - how typical, right?), MS could just buy them if the rumored browser actually exists and takes a huge chunk out of IE's share. I suspect, at least for now, things are set up so this wouldn't happen, but I don't know. And, things change.
pull out your tinfoil hats.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
That's not Apple's website, it's a personal .mac homepage for some guy. I think it's unlikely he has registered the gBrowser trademark.
Martin
I'd welcome a Google browser. While it wouldn't surprise me if they wrote one from scratch, I think they would do better to port KHTML to Windows and build from there. With Apple contributing code to KHTML along with the Open Source community it's sure to have a fruitful and long life, couple that with the lack of a KHTML port for Windows and it would really fill a niche in the browser world. I hope you're listening Google!
You do make a good point - but a robots.txt file would be of negligable bandwidth and specific search engines the site owner wishes to use can be allowed whereas everything else can be disabled - problem solved.
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