Perhaps one of the biggest suprise announcements of the year has hit the web in the form of an online comic book. While the blogosphere and the forums were buzzing with the rumours of Google releasing their very own web browser, an announcement was made yesterday on The Official Google Blog, that the search engine giant is indeed releasing their own browser named “Google Chrome” …
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All of us at Google spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends — all using a browser. Because we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that’s what we set out to build. |
The blog entry goes on to say the beta version is slated to be released today, September 2nd, with the link to download the new browser here.
Chrome will be based on the open source project WebKit, which means hackers and crackers everywhere will have access to the source code to tinker with. Apparently Google has been mucking with the Open Source community to develop their new browser instead of building their application from scratch which makes me wonder if Google Chrome is really a unique browser or if it’s just an extension much like the ill-fated Neo-Planet browser of the late 1990’s.
Who will be using the Google Chrome browser? I’m not sure that I’m willing to install a full blown application from Google on my personal or business computers. Given Google’s history of ignoring personal privacy and tracking people’s internet surfing habits for marketing puposes, I would be hard pressed to allow their browser software complete access to my computer’s operating system. In my experience, a beta release of a software application is questionable at best and I personally do not want to wind up being a victim of malicious software such as was with the Agloco toolbar which inflicted one of my laptops with a severe trojan virus last year.
If you read my previous article about Micrsoft IE8 adding privacy controls that could potentialy spell disaster for Google’s Adsense program, it’s not suprising that Google would have some sort of kneejerk reaction such as this to combat the backlash stirred up by Microsoft regarding Google’s privacy policies.
Adsense publishers are also scratching their heads wondering if it is just a fluke that the withdrawl of the Adsense Referrals program, which was dominated by Firefox download referrals, was timed to coincide with Chrome’s imminent release ?
What do you think? Will you be using Google Chrome or will you stick with the browser you’re already using ?
As many of my readers probably know (and probably agree with), I’m not a fan of free blogging services. Why? Let’s face it, human nature tells us that giving away free stuff brings out the worst in people. However, the sheer amounts of spam, scam and junk blogs hosted by Google’s Blogger and Blogspot services is seriously polluting the internet with downright trash. If one of us webmasters or bloggers were to host such a site that contains so much duplicate content, copyrighted materials and just plain garbage, Google would surely penalize our sites, regardless if there were any useful content presented in between the junk. Is this yet one more clear cut sign that Google, the “Do no Evil” company has painfully mutated into a “double standards” company? Heaven knows they have the resources to clean up their act.
