Other Browsers.

There are plenty of web browsers to choose from and Internet Explorer is continually losing it’s dominance. According to wikipedia.org (August 2009) 65% of users are using Internet Explorer.

Internet Explorer (65.29%;) Mozilla Firefox (25.69%) Safari (3.74%) Google Chrome (2.84%) Opera (1.62%) Other (0.82%)

I’ve seen Firefox with higher numbers in other polls.

For the record, Chrome was officially launched in September 2008 and it is still in BETA form.

Simplicity

Google is a master of simplicity. Because of this, they are huge. This is apparent and I opened Chrome for the first time. The home screen opens with Google search at the top thumbnails of your most commonly visited web sites. Here is a screen capture of my new home screen. (See picture below) Nice? Yes!

Revolutionary? I don’t think so -  it looks pretty similar to my home screen in Apple’s Browser (Safari). (See picture below) I have no idea who borrowed who’s idea, but it is nice.

Themes

Google Chrome boast 25 themes (templates) that you can use skin (change the look) of your browser. Firefox has a similar feature. I’ve found it fun to search though the skins only to revert back the the default theme.

The most exciting part of Chrome is behind the scenes. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is not very stable, thus it is affectionately called Internet Exploder. Google has designed chrome with stability.

“Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today’s complex web applications much better.

By keeping each tab in an isolated “sandbox”, we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites.” says Google.

Web Applications

This is an exciting project, they are looking at today and into the future. Their emphasis is not just to make web sites view properly, but making web APPLICATIONS rock. It is designed to allocate the resources needed for these applications to go to a whole new level. Reading the Google Manifesto I began to see Chrome as much more than a browser. It sounds a lot like an Operating System.

So I wasn’t terribly surprised to learn about Google’s next big thing.

What is next for Google?

This July, Google Announced Chrome OS. That’s right – a new operation system to change the world. I’ll keep you posted.

Oscar Myre IV is the owner and creative director at his marketing firm, omOriginals Design studio in Longview WA. You can reach him for all your “geeky” questions @ #360.575.9839 or online @ omOriginals.com

He said he’d like to hear what you think about Google Chrome, comment online!