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Google-branded Firefox?
arpy writes "An article on Mozillanews.org is reporting on Google's registration of the domain GBrowser.com (nothing to look at there yet). The article provides a summary of rumours that Google will release a branded version of Mozilla Firefox (along with some interesting speculation)."
Anyway, I sorta saw it coming. Google is investing heavily in JavaScript-powered desktop-like web apps like Gmail and Blogger. Google could then use their expertise to build Mozilla apps. It'll be interesting to see whether this happens or not.
Sigs cause cancer.
Why have an OS when you could use Google's servers to send and receive email (GMail), navigate the web (GBrowser), search the web (Google.com) store your files (GMail Drive utility), and search your hard drive (Google Desktop utility)? What next, Google IM?
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If this gets Firefox on more desktops, replacing IE it can only be a good thing for standards compliance, competition and the decline of the IE monoculture.
I'm still strugling to think why they would want to do this, perhaps that have some cool XUL applications in the offering.
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One of those domains was "(companyname)lovesjesus".
I wish I were kidding.
Anyway, it only makes sense for Google to do the same.
I will, however say that I would gladly give up the left nuts of all those within 100 miles of me for a version of FireFox that had what this Google Fangirl thinks would be the Alpha and Omega of browsers.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Introducing secrecy into the coding group is a bad thing whatever the project, but working on something on the scale of Firefox without knowing where the project is headed? Thats a receipe for disaster.. One of the good things about Firefox has been the transparency with which the developers have worked so far. Its easy to know whats going on.
Whats more, there are one or two of us out here that don't want a myriad of features specifically oriented to one corporation. I'd be more than happy with Google producing a line of Google plugins and extensions, but coding them into the browser itself? That sort of thing leads to code forks... and thats not a good thing for the Firefox project on the whole.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
>When do we slashbots start hating google for becoming too big?
When the google browser is no longer open and has a 90% market share.
From our perspective, this is a little silly, and more than a little opportunistic on google's part.
But in the big picture, this will do a lot to put a brand name on an Explorer killer. And google seems to be pretty good at making usable internet products, so I'm giving all of this a tentative thumbs-up. Anything that gets the lusers to not think of the blue e as "the internet" is good by me.
Not that anyone ever cares to ask me, mind you.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
Well, yeah, Mozilla is building a browser and rendering engine and all that... Google is just (supposedly) building brower extensions. :)
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
A lot of critics didn't expect the Gmail thing to fly, claiming they were going the way of Yahoo and other portals -- but Google surprised us with revolutionary features and a completely slick but quick interface.
A lot of people thought advertising on the Internet was dead, but AdSense revived it.
A lot of mainstream media thought tracking our usage was an invasion of our privacy -- but Google has only strengthened its capabilities and products using our data in a productive manner.
When we speculate on Google's pending product releases, we seem to always forget to take into account that there will be something totally new attached to it --- making the product near-revolutionary.
...and that's that you can't open "links" in new tabs. In fact, most of what passes for "links" in GMail aren't links at all; they're just areas that listen for JavaScript mouse events.
Why can't I open my different messages in new tabs? Why can't I view a message, and then open my "inbox" in a separate tab?
As it stands now, I have to manually open a new window and then navigate to GMail. I can't believe Gmail has the same problem hotmail does.
Wow, that's a feature-packed and very useful sounding app! Web browsing, searching, e-mail and newsgroups tightly integrated in one UI. If I were a Google manager (assuming all this is true) I would make a point of calling this a true Internet Browser as opposed to mere web browsers, and promote it as the next step in the evolution of the net.
Yesterday I was reading an interview from Joel Spolsky (You probably know him from Joel on software) and I found the following quote interesting:
In my ("How Microsoft Lost the API War") essay, I quoted a Microsoft guy (and Longhorn Avalon team member) named Joe Beda. I quoted him saying "Microsoft is making a big bet on the rich client." And now he works at Google with Adam Bosworth. I'm sure what they're doing is a new browser. It's the IE (Internet Explorer) team reconstructed inside Google.
I can believe this, and I can perfectly understand Google wanting to hide the fact that their employees are working on this. For one a Google Mozilla based Browser with GMail, GoogleGroups, Blogger, GoogleIM, Google search for the web and your desktop all integrated would rush up the marketshare of Mozilla in huge numbers because Google is known far beyond the tech world. It would be a direct competitor to MSN, and a much better one at that.
It would make IE unused and unwanted by the masses and it would run on any and every platform that Google runs on.
The fact that Google has to time this right should be obvious: If it becomes public knowledge too soon, Microsoft will do it's usual embrace and extend routine to make IE the most modern, full featured browser out there.
But I think Google is absolutely right to do this. Microsoft has already acknowledged Google as a competitor, especially in search services with MSN, and to Microsoft nothing is holy in chasing and killing a competitor. This means that it would not be beneath MS to do it's utmost in both FUD and technical underhandedness to stop Google working on PCs with Windows.
Google's best chance is to attack by moving forward with a platform that integrates many popular web features in order to get the public to move over to Mozilla. Once and if their marketshare is high enough it will prove very very difficult for MS to unseat them, especially if they don't have the majority borwser anymore. This is not 1995 and Microsoft couldn't threaten PC manufacturers with withholding Windows OEM.