Search Engine Optimization News Blog

Google dominates the search market, with over 70% of the market share. Microsoft does the same with the browser market, holding even at 70%. That is perhaps the only thing keeping Microsoft in the game.

Well, the rules are changing. Google practically funded Firefox, and Mozilla has been creeping up the food chain, currently estimated to have bitten off around 20% of the browser market.

And now there is Chrome. Google released the comic book hand manual to their new open source browser yesterday, and the browser is being awaited with bated breath. The ability to gather the best parts of various applications together in one dandy setup is part of what makes this so exciting.

The whole launch was kept quite close to the vest until yesterday, when apparently a copy of the introductory comic book started making the rounds. Not having heard any noise from Google for nearly a year about a planned browser, the excitement flared instantly!

The news also explained a few things. Google acquisition of GreenBorder, for example, listed as ‘internal use’ in their records, now makes sense. The extension of their contract with Mozilla / Firefox to be the default engine for the up and coming browser also has greater clarity.

Gears are integrated into the new Chrome, as well as multiple Google based applications – all open source, so others can tinker away. Google says their goal is for a better internet for everyone.

Of course, stealing the wind from Microsoft’s IE8 can’t hurt any either. The main thing Google has going for them is the solid sandbox approach, which isolates tabs from each other so that in the event of a tab crash, the whole browser doesn’t follow.

This single feature is likely to bring fans flocking to the download – several people have asked why, with Mozilla / Firefox, Safari, Opera, Flock and others, why in the world would anyone want another web browser.

The answer? Quite a few people! Simply the Google brand is going to be enough to get a lot of average joes to download, and the open source aspect will be hooking and reeling in developers.

Sheer curiosity will bring in ones in the middle, who will want to check it out just because. I mean, once you have five others already, what’s one more?

I for one can’t wait to see these sandboxed tabs, and find out what memory hog is slowing me down. The ability to tear a tab off and open a new window is attractive as well! Google is taking all the best parts of every company they have worked with, and bringing it together in a completely new way.

Assuming they have worked the bugs out of Gmail, look to see some interesting apps there, as well as with Google docs and other applications. In the meantime, check out the comic book (link on Google’s blog) and see how it is all supposed to work.

 SG