There was a time when
browser used to be a separate application that was not a standard part of Operating System. People had options. Then came a big giant, and things would never be the same. Air would never be clean again. A cold
war was set off. Do I need to tell more?
Internet Explorer, the blue E, had become synonymous to internet the same way Windows became synonymous to computer. [I have deliberately used internet in place of browser and computer in place of OS, so please, no hullabaloo regarding the same ;) ] . The little blue E was made an inseparable part of ubiquitous Windows. Though there was an Antitrust suit blah blah.. (which I don't want to discuss here).. it hardly made any difference.
Time kept passing by. The big M had now become a symbol of tyranny. The little E kept reigning the
browsersphere. Given the backing of the big M, nobody could move E from its throne.
Meanwhile there was born a little g (then little), who had all good intents of organizing information. Little g would not intrude into business of others. It would just innovate (or take over small fishes in the pond).
At around same time a little m was born. By 2004 little m devised its flagship product named ffx (firefox, if you don't know). It was open source browser, all set to set all the records straight with M for whatever it had done to the poor chap NN (Netscape Navigator). And by far, it is climbing the ladder of success, successfully.
During all this, little g's growth had been exponential. Its journey from little g to bold face, font size 64, underlined, hyperlinked G was record breaking, jaws dropping.
G liked the good deeds of m. Shook hands. Together they looked like becoming a synomym of web 2.0. Glory of browser was coming back. People started realizing that Internet cannot only be explored by IE (and also computer cannot only be operated through a small service Window). G was ruling the web.
G should be having data of users like no other on the planet. G's offerings were increasing day-by day. G Offered win-win situation for businesses and end users by its Advertising services. G took control of everything, from search to email, blog to documents, code to health, finance to patents (and the endless list goes on). But somewhere in the back of its mind, G realized that all services it provides are still accessed through a medium (browser) on which it has little control.
Bang!!!! G lunched its own browser named
chrome. They are giving good
reasons as well. (Psst psst... has it got anything to with impending release of IE8)
As of now (2-Sep-2008), it (like all other Google products) is under Google's cool, all-new, exclusive forever-beta tag. Do they also think putting beta is trendy? because gmail, after 4 years, still has beta.
Anyways, I've always liked almost everything Google has offered. And am going to try this out as well and very soon gonna
update you about it.
PS: Don't be deceived by the cynical language of this blog. I am a Google fan. I have respect to MS as well. They have done a lot good to the computing world. Please don't always disparage MS. It should really hurt the good folks working there.
PPS: Throughout this blog I have not mentioned the super brand with little
i (and their broswer Safari). And also the browser with big O (Opera). This does not mean their contribution is insignificant. They were not here just because they would add a very little to the discussion. Now I have mentioned them, I feel better. Feel much safer from those iFanatics.
PPPS: You can find more on
browser comparison (and almost anything that you can think of) on
wikipedia
