Why Chrome and not a better Firefox?

Tiny URL: http://tinyurl.com/5bnf9v
September 2nd, 2008 • Related • Filed Under
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Ever since Google’s Chrome web browser has been released, I cannot stop and wonder why Google choose to do it’s own browser versus enhancing Firefox, especially when it has backed the Mozilla foundation for quite sometime. According to wikipedia, the Google , Mozilla partnership contributes about 85% of the revenues for the Mozilla foundation.

The foundation has an ongoing deal with Google to make Google search the default in the Firefox browser search bar and hence send it search referrals; a Firefox themed Google search site has also been made the default home page of Firefox.

A footnote in Mozilla’s 2006 financial report states “Mozilla has a contract with a search engine provider for royalties. The contract originally expired in November 2006 but was renewed for two years and expires in November 2008. Approximately 85% of Mozilla’s revenue for 2006 was derived from this contract.”; this equates to approximately US$56.8 million

There are several good technical arguments being put forth for Chrome: It’s the future for Google’s war against Microsoft, a platform that has been designed to work with Google’s cloud with web applications in mind versus a typical browser that displays web pages, optimized to perform and fast for web applications. It’s all that and also brings “ease of use” that is common with Google products. However I can’t help but think that there’s something more to Chrome than just technical merit.

Google’s bread and butter is it’s advertising business: Adsense and Adwords that has made “Ads by Google” virtually ubiquitous everywhere on websites including ours! With Firefox, there’s one area which Google can’t control which hurts it’s advertising revenues. That’s Adblock! There are 24 million plus downloaded installations of adblock on Firefox browsers with over half a million downloading the Adblock plus plugin every week! Microsoft has full control over IE and Google wants the same control over browsers that people use to surf the internet. With Firefox, Google will never have complete control. Chrome now starts to make a whole lot of sense from this vantage point.

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  • WaitingForTheG1
    Wow, you have totally missed the point of Chrome. Google needed a browser for Android and Firefox was too code heavy for that purpose. Since they were going to have to develop a browser for Android they might as well make a PC version.
  • rp
    Android is using webkit, not firefox code.
  • still i will say just because of addons , firefox will remain popular
  • rp
    Yep. I have a dozen I use and there's no way I am switching unless chrome has them available. The interesting thing would be if chrome started supporting firefox extensions.
  • RandomCommentGuy
    I don't know why people like Chrome
    Both the interface and the way they speed things up (the way pages load) are just plain annoying.

    It DOES suck.
  • Dérico
    It's non-sense.

    Don't forget Chrome is open source... Therefore, soon enough there shall be add-ons, and believe me one of these will something like Ad-Block...
  • me
    Chrome kinda sucks TBH.
  • Chrome's still in beta, so maybe it will support extensions in future, but it's not looking promising at the moment

    For the time being, Google Chrome does not accept
    any extensions:
    http://www.google.com/support/chrome/bin/answer...

    very little info there at the moment. I'd be surprised if it they don't eventually provide support, but as the article states, there are some very good reasons why they wouldn't.
  • Google Chrome is fully transparent and open source. They will have plugin support and there will be an Adblock extension for it no doubt. I think it's wrong to blog what you think Google's intentions are when it's obvious the browser is majorly incomplete (as they've said).

    How can Google make a browser that doesn't allow an Adblock extension if it's open source anyway? Anyone with programming knowledge could modify Chrome to have extension support and even block ads if Google doesn't even implement such a feature.
  • Midnightzak
    agreed, Chrome is open source, there isn't blocking software yet because its still a Beta product, but you can be sure that AdBlock will be release for Chrome...
  • Raghavendra
    Is it possible to view the contents of the webpages visited by google chrome browser offline. This offline content display is very much with I.E and contents are sotred in C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files.
    is there any such facility with googlechrome.
    thanks
  • rp
    I don't see an option for that in chrome. A simple test where you remove your network cable and try to connect just gives an error. However, Chrome has Google gears integrated so if your site/app is gears enabled, you can use gears in offline mode. However, so far I think you are right, 1 for IE , 0 for Chrome on the offline browsing mode.
  • Supa
    Some of the information is at C:\Documents and Settings\DemoUser\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default.
    Now how do you interpret that is a question
  • Google chrome rocks, i hope the mac version will be out soon
  • Supa
    Chrome Mac will be awesome. In the meantime, you can run it with VMWare Fusion. -

    http://blogs.vmware.com/vmtn/2008/09/google-chr...

    "It's smoking fast!"
  • Viva la Firefox!

    I do not know what I would do without my toolbar extensions.

    I have no plans to ever leave Firefox i know that most people in my industry feel the same.
  • You make a good point.
    Indeed partnership was not enough! We will be facing a problem of duopoly between Microsoft and Google. Google is still moving forward to controlling search engines and web platforms. By the time it will be prosecuted by antitrust measures it will be too late (like it was too late for Microsoft on the desktop).
    One can contribute to diminish IE market share while keeping Firefox market share by pushing IE users to switch to Firefox.
  • Supa
    Fortunately, I am not aware that Google has tried to break any industry standards. Unfortunately, with chrome and JavaScript reforming, they might be one step closer to doing that.

    So the question is "Does Evil Comes Naturally to Corporations?"
  • Peter
    If chrome is going gain traction it will have be managed openly and allow plug-ins. So to accomplish Google's goal for chrome, sizable market share, plug-ins will be available that will hurt Google's bottom line. Plug-in neutrality? Sounds like a conflict of interest in the making that will strain Google's desire not to be evil.
  • Some Guy
    Except that Chrome is open-source. Ad-block, or something like it, will be available for it in the future.
  • krumby
    Think of open office, it's open source but Sun still has the most say in what goes into the open office releases.
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