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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)."
Will Google Launch A Browser? and John Doerr Disclaims Rumored GBrowser
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.
Could the hirings of the browser people be just to integrate desktop search better with current existing browers? That does sound more likely to me.
When do we slashbots start hating google for becoming too big?
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?
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
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.
The html got messed up somewhere along the line. Here's my original submission:
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).
OK, this story is pure speculation.
But if it turns out to be real, will they be able to gain a significant market share? Against IE and the rising Mozilla-based FireFox? To me, it seems that IE get all the non-techy people love, and Firefox gets the geeks... They better implement some VERY nice features, because the Google name alone won't make me switch for sure. And I LOVE Google.
Eureka Science News - automatically updated
See what I've been reading.
WHOIS on GBrowser.com
Registrant:
Google Inc.
(DOM-1278108)
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View
CA
94043
US
Domain Name: gbrowser.com
Administrative Contact:
DNS Admin
(NIC-1467103)
Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View
CA
94043
US
dns-admin@google.com
+1.6503300100
Fax- +1.6506188571
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
DNS Admin
(NIC-1467103)
Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View
CA
94043
US
dns-admin@google.com
+1.6503300100
Fax- +1.6506188571
Created on..............: 2004-Apr-26.
Expires on..............: 2006-Apr-26.
Record last updated on..: 2004-Apr-26 16:46:39.
Google's Browser Plans
October 19th, 2004 - jesus_x
For several months, there's been a lot of buzz around Google's April 2004 registration of the gbrowser.com domain. After quite a while of digging, I believe I've managed to boil some truth out of the rumor stew. While this is pure speculation, it's speculation based on a wide variety of facts gathered over the past three months. Feel free to take it with a generous helping of salt.
The Mozilla developers have been stone silent on the issue, aside from a few accidental slips, but several other sources have let loose other bits of information. Interestingly, there's either great confusion on the plans (or a highly partitioned project inside Google), or a good deal of misinformation. Trying to determine what's real and what's not is like making a Venn diagram. Each source is a circle filled with information. Some information is common to all or many circles, some information only comes from one source. you have to put all the circles together, and where they overlap is the most reliable information. So after weeks of analysis, this is where we think Gbrowser is headed.
The overlap is looking like a Google branded and customized Firefox based browser. To help set it apart from the rest of the browser crowd, they're integrating a lot of their own technologies. Since Firefox does not contain a mail app, they're integrating Gmail for email access, with a built in new-mail notifier. Interestingly, mailto: urls will work with Gmail, allowing peple to click email links in pages and have Gmail open a new mail to that address, as well as IE-like buttons on the toolbar for composing new mail from scratch.
Newsgroups will be built in similar to Gmail with the Google Groups service, and possibly the ability to select groups to watch, like in a full fledged newsreader (like Mozilla Thunderbird). And Google News will also have built in access from the browser along with Google Alerts or a similar, RSS-based feature.
Other features include better search integration, with the extra features such as Image Searching by right clicking on an image or selected word. As Silicon.com found there is also a Google branded IM service on the way as well, and could be a Jabber or rebranded AIM also coming bundled with the browser.
There are other, extra-browser features that will most likely come with it, and tie into the browser, such as Google Desktop Search, Picasa (with links to the browser for web-related sharing, searching, etc.), and Google Toolbar features that IE users currently enjoy.
Also, Google loves the recently aquired Blogger, and will have built in linkage to Blogger and rich-editing tools, making Blogger a highly integrated feature, with the ability to blog links and web-content as easily as using their integrated GMail features.
As I stated, Mozilla.org and Mozilla developers have been very quiet on all of this. But with such an open organization, it's hard to hide all secrets. There have been a lot of hidden bugs in Bugzilla related to searching, bugs that even members of the Security group can't access. Recently, there was a bug duplicated to a confidential bug with the following comment by the triager: "This is a duplicate of a private bug about working with Google. So closing this one." That bug also now closed, but it was open long enouch for people to notice it.
There's also a lot of 'covert' code going into the tree without individual bug references. And none of these patches are being checked in by Google staff, but by other Mozilla developers, ostensibly checking in code for Google employees to keep a low profile. None of this is Google-exclusive, per se, as much as it is code that one could easily see as making life easier for a third party developer making heavy integration changes. the checking comments are usually very technically described, possibly to obfuscate their use to the majority of watchers to maintain the secret. Example
Exactly how all this is being tied together is not clear, alth
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
Competition often provides an impetus to remain benevolent. If Google were to successfully conquer Microsoft, then what impetus would they possess to remain benevolent? Google is now a publicly traded corporation, and "Don't be evil!" may not last.
Do you like German cars?
Google Browses you!
FWIW, googlelovesjesus.com is available.
At least for the next few seconds.
Lately democracy seems to be based on the skybox, the Happy Meal box, the X-box, and the idiot box.
So let's branch off into 800 money-losing "businesses" and flush a pile of cash the size of Nebraska down a shithole so someone can stand up in a meeting and look brilliant by saying "I think we should return to our core business."
Then we can start the layoffs.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Google will bundle an OS with their search engine
All your Sybase are belong to us.
Google-Toolbar, Google-Desktop, Picassa, etc. etc. etc...but everything windoze. I would simply love the google-desktop for linux or mac.. may be, so firefox might be *sortof* an answer.
google desktop runs a webserver on the localhost which the browser connects to, so u can always use google desktop of ur windows machine from the linux machine and do stuff like that.
The Mozilla Foundation should register mozsearch.com then start buying up shares in Google but denying they have an interest in search... it would serve absolutely not purpose but it would create a hell of a lot of hype and speculation.
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So, Google will build their technology into a browser.. and add mail, news and searching capabilities. then they'll couple that with the desktop search facility, maybe with an auto-translation of emails service... how about right-click on a word (product) in an email and search for its price... Hehe.. might as well add Solitaire and call it an operating system...
Integration's great, but at which point will it just become a bloated, lock-in business model??
Specifically
So does by linking the entire article description mean that most Slashdotters are having poor eyesite problems? It's getting harder and harder to see where the little mouse cursor is located so screw it, just link the whole damn thing and click-click-click away til you get it.
Why does everyone assume that Gbrowser would be a web browser? It could really be any number of things; an online photo album, an online store, anything that you can "browse".
And that's the problem with mysql_pconnect, IMHO... I recommend using mysql_connect because if you get slashdotted, at least the connections are not persistent (meaning you get more of them). I was slashdotted a while ago and my code held up using mysql_connect();
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Here we go again! I cant wait for the next "google rumor of the week." "Google has been said to have tested their own Google-brand cold fusion ractor, codenamed GFuse. However, this comes with little fan-fare as next month they are expected to unveil their anti-matter warp core and time travel device."
If it's possible?
Julie Moult is an idiot.
Will Gbrowser be GPL?
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
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.
Indeed, by using Mozilla code Google is not building a browser at all. If he'd said "distributing" I might think different.
A google branded browser would do really well, and could do wonders to further teh adoption of XUL if it helped use Google, GMail, and other Google apps.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
At first I thought to myself "What's the point?" but upon reading the article, I saw a few valid ideas for such a product.
My main concern about this lies in whether or not Google's rebranded Firefox will essentially steal the Firefox project away from Mozilla. Ultimately, Google has far more popular support as a whole than Mozilla, and is well known by an audience consisting not of just computer geeks, but my IE-wielding doofus customers. I think even if the Google browser were 100% identical to Firefox, it would in the end be more successful simply because of the brand recognition.
When we look at the "browser wars" right now, our two distinct groups are IE and Firefox (and Opera, etc etc..), but division among the ranks of open source soldiers is the worst thing that could happen to us. If Google's rendition of Firefox becomes more successful than Firefox, they will in the end seize some level of control over the whole Mozilla project. If they were to do so, well.. They'd be a bunch of jerks.
IMO the best way Google could go about such a project would be to implement their new additions to the Firefox browser via XUL, with minimal changes to the core browser itself. If they leave the Firefox browser as the property of the Mozila project, they don't step on any toes, and XUL is still flexible enough that they can make all the toys they'd like. Furthermore, even if they distribute their own Google Browser Package which is essentially Firefox with the Google XUL Extensions, it would still capture their market while remaining "friends" of the open source community. I don't think I'd install a Google browser myself, but I'd consider a couple of Google extensions on Firefox.
This again ties back to a previous article about the role of XUL. Cross platform workplaces are becoming more and more common these days, and an XUL oriented work platform could certainly alleviate a lot of the stress. Imagine plugging in your PDA/Cell phone, and bing, it synchronizes with a Firefox extension, the same as you use at home, at work, etc. Or even if you used XUL extensions for instant messaging, saving synchronizing files between home and work (Gmail file system extension anybody?), basic office work.. Ultimately if Firefox wants to take a major stab at IE's market, they're going to need some clever tricks to get people to rely on it, and if you ask me, getting people to rely on the XUL platform is it.
On the exact same day that WebmasterWorld runs an article with a quote debunking this, Slashdot lets out the trolls and conpsiracy theorists:
9 -00000e2511c8.html
One widely rumoured defence against Microsoft has been a Google web browser potentially countering the software giant's ability to embed its own search engine into its operating system.
'We are not building a browser,' Mr Schmidt said."
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/3d077db6-25ff-11d9-81d
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
--DISCLAIMER: The following is only conjecture and opinion--
Because Google is asking something momentous of the Mozilla Organization.
Something that might cause Mozilla to lose all of the good karma and favor they have built up with the Open Source community.
What would this be?
A license shift, or something akin to it.
Think of this:
1)It's patently obvious that Google wants to work with Mozilla(or at least it is to me.)
2)However, the Mozilla applications are trilicensed(GPL/LGPL/MPL).
3)And under those licences, Google would have to release any changes they make to the Mozilla codebase to their own licence.
4)Google, in the past, has demonstrated a notable lack of willingness to open up their own applications and non-search engine APIs to developers.
So what can we conclude from this? Google wants to build off Firefox, in an environment where they do not have to recontribute their changes back to the shared codebase. From that, we can gather that possibly Google has extended an offer to Mozilla:
We'll give you whackloads of money-enough to keep you afloat for years-if you either change to a BSD-type licence or give us a snapshot of the Mozilla codetree that we can use for closed-source application building.
This would be very tempting to Mozilla-they wouldn't need to worry about money so much, and could concentrate on browser building. However, it would definitely lose them brownie points amongst the Open Source community-and can they afford that? And if they turn Google down, will Google favor MS and Opera over them? Drop compatibility between Firefox and GMail?
Think about this-it makes an awful lot of sense.
The role of the writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say. -Anais Nin
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.
Google has impressed me from the start with their ability to make the right moves. If they were to create their own Linux distro and go from there, I bet they could own the world in 5 years. Longhorn, schlonghorn.
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.
The web isn't the only thing you can browse.
You worked for Satan at the birth of the .com boom too?
Google already has an IM client. It's called Hello, and they got it when they bought Picasa.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
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.
Most of Google's features aren't compatible with Firefox.
Even their latest offering, the desktop search says they might include FireFox support in the future, but only if enough people request it.
I would think that if they are in fact going to release a rebranded FireFox, they would be making sure that most of their services work with it.
It sounds like a bunch of wishful thinking to me.
Ginux - Glinux - LinuG - LiGux - G-Linux - Gnix - Ginix - Goonix - Lingle - Lingoo -G*nix - Gnugle/Linux and Gurd and GOS and GFOSS and Mangoo and Gonectiva and Goose and Yellow God GOT Goontoo and
Glackware and Glookware and Slackgoo and Slackgle and
Gasp and
Grosa and
Gine and
Grudgeware and
G007! and
Gycoris and
Gaydar and
Galt and
Grid and
Gark and
Ginspire and
Goper and
Gorphix and
Guppy and
Fedora Gore and
Gimpi and
Golinux and
The list goes on and on..
Dashes/ands/bad formating for benefit of lameness filter.
Gnopix is already taken!
Simon's Rock College
Google Desktop search didn't seem to take privacy that seriously...
nice Troll, too bad it's pretty well known now that the "Google desktop search is spyware" FUD has already been debunked
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Didn't Netscape do the same thing with AOL sometime in the past several years? I remember Netscape being much better than MSIE til after the sell-out. At that point, I switched to MSIE because it didn't come with AOL's crap plastered all over it. Am I going to have to do the same with FireFox?
-- Game Developers: Stop porting badly-textured games from crappy console systems!