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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."
Google develops the rich web app stack. Applications can be deployed through the web with richer interfaces then HTML provides.
Google has some of these apps (search, email etc).
Google get's richer.
What if Google can do something or have something (an idea) which no other browser has implemented? Google has already shaken up the search market and is now shaking up the email market with its Gmail service. What happens if lighting can strike a third time and create some sort of healthy competition for the brower market once again? At least mindshare would come from it and people would realise there is more than just IE out there. A lot of people use google and they are not geeks either, which is what we want.
Jonathanjk.com
The current gmail marketing campaign is working well...
The invite system allows the system to reduce the amount of load at one time... reduce the amount of beta testing, etc.
GMail, GBrowse, GAnything -- they work because they remind people of this "wonderful" thing called google. As long as the letter G is associated with bigger and better, Google can send rumors of any google product...
Any press... any rumors... is good for google.
... that the good folks @ Google are prepared for their first massive *shrug* from the masses. It would take something extraordinary for me to switch from Firefox at this point. I would imagine the same from a lot of people. They could cash in on the IE-weary public, looking for a change, but those of us using Gecko-based browsing are quite fanatical about it. :)
From what I understood by reading the article, they might actually be planning to release some sort of modified version of Mozilla. Having more browsers using the Gecko engine sure can't be a bad thing. Plus, it will put some pressure on Microsoft to improve their browser and actually support standards.
If Google places it's name on a browser, it will sure become popular in a matter of days.
The success of standards depend on having multiple quality implementations. Right now, this remains a problem as only Mozilla does it right (Safari seems to be fine but I never really tested it).
Qui ne va pas à la chasse n'a pas de gibier
PHP Queb
The company also hired four people who worked on Microsoft's Web browser...
If they're trying to build their own browser, why would they want IE developers? If it were my business, I'd want guys who had developed a product that had to stand on its own merit to succeed. Building a product that is successful largely because of an illegal monopoly is less than impressive.
It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.
People seem to think that everything that google ever does is a god-sent gift!
...
I think it's about time (Especially after the IPO), that people would realize that google, is first and foremost a company that's "in-it" for the money.
with the word, money, being a key-word,
especially when it comes to its shareholders.
Soon enough, pressure from that direction would reach into company policy, and google would cease "doing no evil"
I suggest, that we should all objectively judge each and every new product or service that google offers.
Personally, I think a whole lot of very talented people are working together on the mozilla project, and they've been doing so for years.
Why would anyone with a right-mind think
that google could do any better in the short term?
If anything, A usable product is YEARS from being ready, and by that time, who knows how powerful and advanced firefox or some other "now-working" browser would become?
Sigs are for the weak.
I think lots of people have doubted what Google can produce, but so far (to my knowledge), Google has succeeded with everything. Last yearm who would have believed you if you said that Google would offer e-mail? Not many people.
For the browser, all of Google's tools will be integrated. Think about this: spell checking when you post, the ability to click on "blog this (already available on Google's tool bar), interrelated Gmail, possibly image searching on your computer and on the internet simultaneously.
If the Google browser is good, free, and has no or only Google text ads, and has lots of features, I'll switch. If Google can make my life easier, I'm all for it.
What's the point of a sig?
This is why Microsoft developing a search engine and Google developing a web browser is a good thing - you can't be too evil if you have a competitor people could easily switch to, e.g. the Redmond boys have more than enough money to throw at developing a search engine to equal Google, and Google has enough support in the OSS community to write a cool browser and then slap a well-known, respected corporate name on the boilerplate and use it to trounce IE.
Even if Google did 'go bad', then two evil companies fighting against each other can only be a good thing, as neither can be too evil or they will lose too much market and mind share to the other side. That's the beauty of the system. Of course, like the US elections, a two-horse race doesn't always give the people at the bottom much choice, but it ensures that neither side goes total fascist/monopolist on us.
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
C'mon, i love Google as much as anyone else, but is it really necesary? I mean, with the Google Toolbar already available for download and stuff. Integrated GMail would be nice too, but there's already a lot of perfectly useable browsers. Hell, i even like Opera's Google search better than any toolbar.
I don't know, i get a little jumpy when i see companies (that i like, if that's possible) diversifying too much instead of focusing on what they do best. Usually it's a sign of bad things coming.
Can google compete with open-source options like mozilla and opera?
From the article
Last month, Google hosted Mozilla Developer Day on its campus, a gathering of programmers that work together to build sequels to the re-named Netscape browser.
They might just jump on board and make a re-branded mozilla (or firefox, in fact probably firefox). The only problem with that is mozilla is still a touch flaky at times and I'm not sure that the current firefox designs will fit in with googles current design philosophy which is the embodiment of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). Gmail for all it's little goodies is still very utilitarian, the google search engine itself is the epitomy of simplicity, firefox while an amazing piece of software and simpler than mozilla just doesn't have nearly this level of simplicity. Google may choose to go with firefox due to the already existing user base and code but doing something along the lines of Safari is certainly an option that must be considered (and considering googles history is something I'm very interested to see).
On the other hand this is all still a bunch of speculation. Look at the evidence so far, they have a former lead Java guy from Sun, also
The company also hired four people who worked on Microsoft's Web browser, Internet Explorer, and later founded their own company. One of them, Adam Bosworth, is credited with being a driving force not only behind IE, but Microsoft's database-management program, Access.
Could be a browser yeah, but what did these guys do in this new company? Also note that the biggest hire was also a database guy.
Most recently, Google grabbed Joe Beda, the lead developer on Avalon, Microsoft's code name for the user interface that will part of the next version of Windows, called Longhorn.
Nice catch if you ignore the jokes about Microsoft UI but certainly nothing specific to web browsers there that I can see. More on mozilla day,
Mozilla, which is "open source" and available to anyone, could be shaped to Google's specifications and be embedded with Google search, Gmail free e-mail and other Google applications.
Seems to me that they're making the logical move of trying to see if they can get google stuff is integrated into mozilla. The last bit is perhaps the most telling,
Other blogs and analysts believe Google is working on an instant-messaging program and a Web browser to challenge Internet Explorer.
Well if bloggers and analysts are saying so then it MUST be true!! The fact is that google is everyones favorite company so we're rooting for it to get into the front lines of the browser wars, the place where Microsoft is considered most vulnerable by the geek population. I hope that google is working on a browser, I hope it will blow IE out of the water but there's a difference between wishful thinking and fact. Look at the main apps that google does have, google itself, the google toolbar, and gmail, wonderful apps but from a users perspective extremely simple and not subject to the whims of screwy users systems, I can't imagine them jumping into the browser wars where they don't hold all the cards (dependent on the OS) and the product is orders of magnitude more complex, I just don't think it's gonna happen.
The instant messaging program however, now that I can see, little more complex but still very simple and a somewhat natural extension for them (bring up ads and stuff based on conversations and easy searching in logs like gmail).
GTalk anyone?
I stole this Sig
Does it ever occur to you people that maybe not everyone likes the same things you do?
Honest - other people have opinions, they really do. Maybe YOU don't prefer Opera, but the original poster does. Mentioning the benefits and your opinion of Firefox is fine, but don't be a condescending jackass just because they prefer Opera.
Cripes.. if you like Firefox, fine - I love Firefox, it's my absolute number one browser of choice, but that doesn't mean I'm so utterly wrapped up in myself and my own thought processes that I don't recognize that maybe some other people don't like it the same way I do.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Perhaps you can't enter a URL and just get google on the browser.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The problem with XUL isn't with XUL :) it's with the javascript you need to interface with XUL. There's no documentation. You try to get stuff done and quickly discover that simple things that claim to work don't and if you're trying to do anything dynamic like change a style sheet at runtime there's no documented way to do it.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Must everybody in the world have thier own broswer these days? We are already plagued by interoperability in browsers, Operating Systems, Instant messengers, etc... I know it's always good to have a choice, but not when it's this complicated. I support multiple choices, but I'd like them all to at least work, as well as work together.
It seems like these days everybody wants to be a search engine, everybody wants to offer a music download service. Now is everyone going to offer thier own browers?
If you are still looking for Gmail invites, I have 78 left. Pretty good odds too.
Instead of developing a new browser, I would like to see Google releasing the browser as a re-packaging of Mozilla.
Hence we can have one more standard-conforming browser and, by using the reputation and power of Google, to ask those "View only with IE" sites to change!
http://www.ieaa.org/~adrian/
Well, adblocking techniques have existed for a long time, and are available for just about all browsers... including IE. The target demographic of any upstart browser is the uninformed IE user. The kind of person who's taskbar is filled with hundreds of unnoticed IE instances in the form of pop-ups (unders in that case?). You and I can certainly rid our lives (to a certain extent) of internet advertising, but as it is, without a well marketed and simple solution, the masses cannot.
The fact that such a thing doesn't exist is proof that people have learned to live with and expect ads. What do they care if yet another sits atop their browser?
Must everybody in the world have thier own broswer these days? We are already plagued by interoperability in browsers, Operating Systems, Instant messengers, etc... I know it's always good to have a choice, but not when it's this complicated. I support multiple choices, but I'd like them all to at least work, as well as work together.
You know, if everyone just stuck with the standards, this would be a non-issue.
funny munging
Do you not understand the concept of capitalism? The goal of a company/corporation/whatever is to MAKE MONEY. They are not going to make money by making their search engine any better than it already is. 4.2 Billion webpages is more than enough for just about any topic that has any information on the net.
I, for one, welcome google to introduce some competition. I think it would be an incredibly beneficial thing to have 2 large companies that are about even in software. If google wants to start making everything, I hope they do. I hope google makes an OS. I have always been a supporter of windows on slashdot (mod me down), mostly because of the anti-microsoft FUD that gets posted here, and I believe windows XP is incredibly stable and secure for people who know how to use it. Now SP2 makes it secure (and stable, if you factor in the fact that less adware will be getting installed) for everyone. Now back on topic... If google made an OS, I would guess it would be incredibly secure, fast, unbloated (like google's main search page), and will use genius techniques for just about everything. Google won't have to base a new OS off of anything else, while windows has always been known for making things compatable with older versions (which I believe is good, given their circumstances)... but google has different circumstances, and can make software for the future.
You geeks should like the fact that google is going in to new fields. They are probably the only company that can rival microsoft.
The more big browsers there are, the more standards-compliant they must become (though not necessarily W3C standards). This is the opposite of instant messaging - your users must be able to access all content. Web coders would have to be compliant to ensure that people on all browsers could see content, as well. Ten browsers at 10% market share each would be much better than one at 75%.
G
they sure don't care much about privacy.
I think "privacy" is something that means different things to different people.
would it make a difference to you if Google explicitly guaranteed that no *human* entity would get to look at your data, and that any machine-automated use of the data would be limited to a specific task (and nothing else, and never would this be changed without your consent)? In such a situation I wouldn't mind.
I absolutely do not want some human person mucking about through information about my online purchases etc., but - assuming Google can handle their systems well enough not to be rooted by anybody - i really could not care less if some machine decides to flag down my activity and ask me if I wanted yet another SATA drive for a good price (and the answer is yes!).
until the machines become self-aware, conscious entities, I would assume they could care less (or rather, are *incapable* of caring) what I want to buy online either (actually, if Google's systems DID emerge into consciousness, I doubt it'd find my online activities interesting either. "Hanging out on Slashdot? doesn't this guy have anything better to do?"). The only thing to worry about would be whether, through incompetence or maliciousness, our data is exploited for some other purpose. if it's a rules-based system "if X user keeps hitting star wars paraphernalia sites, offer X user star wars adverts", and no nefarious individual finds out this info ("hrm, I'll bait him with a fake ebay sale"), what harm is there? (honest question - I'd like to know).
Firefox, MSIE, and Safari already have integrated Gmail clients -- the browsers themselves. A notifier and mailto handler might be nice, too, but that can be handled equally well with a plug-in.
I absolutely do not want some human person mucking about through information about my online purchases etc
But could a google cookie really do that? Let's say I go to amazon.com (by typing it into the browser window). I buy a book. How the hell can google find out I even went to the site, let alone bought a book? This fear of a cookie to me seems ridiculous. From what I've been taught They're not that powerful. Honest question.
Really, what prevents Google from rebranding MSHTML? I gather that most browsers (produced, not consumed) are just inspired shells on top of Internet Explorer's backend. From a corporate POV, it seems much cheaper just to hire "Recent Vocational School Programming Graduates" and "High School VB Hackers" over C and competent XML/JavaScript developers. (Yes, there is a Mozilla ActiveX Control; however, it really isn't an offical part of Mozilla and hasn't been used in the wild nearly as much as Microsoft's version.) Furthermore, a simple shell would be a smaller download.
And there is precedence: Google Toolbar was never released for anything but MSIE on Windows. If it wasn't designed properly (likely), then integrating its functionality would be easier with a MSHTML shell rather than a Mozilla app.
Don't get me wrong: I really wish that Google was developing a Mozilla-based browser. However, I simply don't see that as likely as a MSIE derivative. :-(
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.
- Jerome Klapka Jerome
I agree It doesn't mean that much to have the domain registered.
However I do find it interesting when they registered gbrowser.com
vs gmail.com
[I still can't imagine that web designers don't design for all modern browsers. We have a large and sophisticated application costing millions, and I have to say that it cost about $100 to make sure that we could support just about everyone]
You obviously have no QA or Development experience, do you? Maybe in your area coding for "all modern browsers" is trivial, but in many areas it is not. The changes just between versions of IE 4, 5, and 6 are fairly large from a design point of view. If you're throwing in Mozilla, Firefox, etc support, that adds a lot.
If you have a QA division that is responsible for making sure that all browsers "work properly" that requires testing on all the different browsers. Did I mention each set of browsers may need to be tested on multiple OSes as well?
Just because it only costs YOU $100 to do something that you say is trivial, does not mean that is anywhere near the case for others.
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
"you need to use things for which there are no standards, such as Flash"
Just an assinine aside, but nobody in the entire history of the world has ever needed to use flash.
Wanted to, yes.
Decided to, yes.
Been told to, yes.
needed to, no.
There's no documentation.
That's what I've been saying for months. I even got chided by some big-name Mozilla devs here on Slashdot for saying that the reason Microsoft's XAML will trounce all over XUL is because you can bet your ass XAML and all supporting infrastructure will be fully documented, because if you've ever seen MSDN, you know its staggeringly comprehensive. "Go to XULPlanet," I was told, "everything is documented there."
Truth be told, XULPlanet only really documents maybe half the API. Sure, the interface definitions are there for the rest, but there's no description for most of it beyond the method names; the sample code coverage is virtually nil; and if you flip a coin and it comes up tails, XULPlanet.com will be down when you try to visit it and you need to hope that the incomplete mirror at mozdev has the page you want.
After they ship Firefox 1.0, the best thing the Mozilla team could possibly do is to shift their resources to documenting. After documenting, finish up the XRE (come on, how many years is it overdue now?), then switch to evangelizing the platform a little more -- but not until the developer support doc is in place, and not until it can be deployed standalone.
NO CARRIER