Entries tagged with “google chrome” from Paul Lopez Unwired

Google has a better chance of winning consumer interest from Apple rather than Microsoft. Google's systematic rollout of the technology stack is sensible: first Android OS for SmartPhones, then the Chrome Browser and finally, the Chrome Operating System. With Chrome OS, Google has overcome the limitations with Android such as non-Flash support for Firefox, the inability to open attachments or to access USB drives and printers. Google is working with printer manufacturers to come up with a way to avoid making drivers for every printer on the market (good luck with that). The Chrome Browser has won over Apple fans since its introduction. Google's in-house Javascript rendering engine is coupled with Safari's WebKit making the UI fantastic and fast. Couple Chrome browser with a multi-tasking OS on an iPad form factor and you see why I think it's a viable competitor. But if the Nexus One introduction was any indication, I would take a wait and see attitude. The Google Chrome netbooks are due to come out by year-end. If you don't think these devices are still experimental, consider that many of them will have a switch beneath the battery that will allow you to disable security and put the machine in developer mode. From this mode, you'll have access to the open source code. I would love to do that with my MacBook Pro. But, I would probably never get it back together again!

Many people are drawing similarities between Intel's recent announcement of its' AppUp Store and the venerable Apple App Store. Companies including netbook manufacturers, automobile makers, RIM, Palm and Microsoft have followed along Apple's concept. One difference will be the Google Chrome OS application store as they will be web apps, not local apps (well maybe some Google Gears apps). Intel's AppUp is a favor to netbook manufacturers because it provides a nifty application OEMs can customize as their own private label app store. Lest we forget, iTunes was a wildly successful client application before the App Store ever existed. That's why I don't think these second derivative app stores will be that useful. Users don't want to search every app store for what they need. It would make sense to go somewhere on the web where applications are rated by other users across platforms and useful feedback is provided. For open systems like Android, it is even more important that the community act as the support mechanism. The trend is moving toward TVs and other consumer devices and the manufacturers will not be able to keep up. 

Google has introduced their long awaited web browser, Chrome. It's receiving mixed reviews so far.  Microsoft Internet Explorer has 72% market share, followed by Firefox at 19.7% and Safari 6.3%. It took 3 years for Mozilla to go from zero to 20%. My prediction is Google will have 10% market share within one year. Browsers are the operating system of the Internet. Google wants to make your overall Internet experience better. They only want to get more people to use Google. They make no money distributing this software. This does nothing for their bottom line. How does this gain more market share for Google? This is a defensive move from Google. They want to promote more Google Applications but you still need operating systems to run browsers (at least for now).

It appears to run fast, has better memory management, but it will actually use more memory than IE. You can tear off the tabs, but you could already do that on Safari, speaking of which there isn't a version for the MAC. Some users have reported missing their Firefox plug-ins, problems scrolling on Dell touchpads and it doesn't run adblock. It has an Omnibox that combines the search box and the address URL box, which begs the question what happens when you get unresolved URI's? Will it redirect to the ISP's search page or Google? It's worth downloading and comparing to IE 8.0. As with other Google Apps, it's still in "beta."