I've been using the Google Chrome late-alpha browser for three months and took the latest private beta release about two weeks ago -- so forgive me for gently side-stepping the exhuberance that has greeted its public launch.
I don't want to take too much of the shine off the bright new Google object but I think we do need to ask some questions of it and blend the gung-ho 'kill Microsoft' yomping songs with a few quieter rhythms so that we do not fall into the dot.bomb 'ain't everything brilliant' trap. It remains to be seen if the Chrome release is a pivotal moment in the migration of personal computing from the hard drive to the Internet cloud. For me, the pivotal moment would be when Chrome overtook Firefox in terms of market share. The only question here is why Google chose to make their own browser instead of throwing their financial might behind Firefox. My guess would be that they don't want their commercial interests shackled to the Mozilla Foundation's ethics.
The narrative tells us that Chrome has been specifically designed and built to enhance the capacity of the cloud to run multiple applications securely and very fast rather than just displaying web pages. Google have a powerful influence on the internet but they haven't delivered the 'killer app' yet -- search engine aside, ain't that an understatement?! -- that will force people to make a choice. I'm sure it's coming but until then Chrome is just a good and fast browser. Chrome needs to be much more capable if Google is to realise its vision of supplying on-demand applications that have the same richness as those on our traditional desktops.
Browsers are only one weak link of many in the cloud system that hamper Google's commercial interests flowing from its massive data stores. While the company had to address browser failings, it also has other concerns, not least the communications infrastructure -- QoS anyone? It has been reported in The Times
recently that Google has been buying up a lot of the dark fibre out there to create their own backbone comms. It's true that Chrome gives Google an imprint on the desktop and more control over how web applications perform so Windows is the intended target, rather than just IE or other browsers. Google has harnessed Webkit and then built its own Javascript engine (V8) despite the fact that Webkit has one. Ajax applications combined with Gears, which allows for offline access, means Chrome really is a desktop OS.
But I can't see Chrome replacing Windows as Microsoft simply has got too much traction and an enormous development community/reseller community around the OS to insulate it a little, but MS are worried. While you won't kill Windows with a browser, no matter how well engineered it is, you can dent it and when Google goes into mobile and beyond then who knows. For the browser to finish off Windows alone, it need to do all the things that Windows currently does or at least utilise cloud web services to do so and then some. That's a massive undertaking even for the likes of Google, especially as they would not be charging for it directly.
There is also a very big assumption built into the Chrome future success story -- that it will be embraced by the open source community. Currently, they develop for Firefox which, I assume, means that they agree with the Mozilla Foundation's aims. Trying to get the open source guys coding for a different browser that currently has no market share is a really big challenge. A lot depends here on how similar the backends between Firefox and Chrome are -- if it's trivially easy to code for both then the developers will do so as it means a larger audience for their work. If there are too many differences they will simply not bother -- this is the case with IE versus Firefox at the moment. Google's strategy that attacks Microsoft at its proprietary software core and protects itself from further regulatory scrutiny through open source development stands or falls on widespread developer adoption.
Privacy continues to command our anxious attention and I think we have barely scraped the surface of this issue. In the next decade, I think we face a huge challenge with levels of cyber-crime dwarfing current criminal activity. Chrome has made significant security advances with its Incognito mode. It claims to stop websites sharing our information and the spread of malware but is it really anonymising our online behaviour? I looked into the caching levels on my PC, checking the file structures at all levels to see if caching was visible and the good news is that I could find no caching and no IP addressing. As far as I could measure, there also seems to be no traffic going to Google either.
It is better than the current browsers at process isolation but is not anonymising anything. It's just not leaving tracks on your PC of where you have been. There is no mention in Google's Chrome launch comic book of it anonymising actual web activity, for example, preventing tags working. This would be stupid of Google to do anyway as it is directly against their commercial interests. Generally, I find Chrome a straightforward, simple-to-use browser. The simplification is the most appealing aspect of it in my initial three months of use. I see this as analogous to the single text box and search button that delivered good results that still appeals to Google search engine users, winning over the complex and cluttered portals of early Yahoo. The browser's collection of IE8 web slices and no brainer history / favourite imports are excellent and the predictive text in the primary entry is one of the best I've seen. But where are the toolbars, the integration with other web service and tools and the plug-ins?
Software needs to improve across the board, it's not an 'MS only' problem. And the battle is not just for the desktop, it's for the mobile, the digital picture frame, the fridge door, the home control system, the tablet and the table. That's a massive terrain for any company to contemplate, including Google and Microsoft.
Paul Doleman is chief technology officer, iCrossing U.K.
