Google Chrome: Will It Live Up To Expectations?

The big news yesterday on the Internet was - and will probably continue to be - the pre-launch announcement by Google on their new web browser which, according to the BBC, will be available on the morning of Wednesday 3rd September, PST.

The Google Chrome Comic Book really does tell an interesting story - if you're at least part geek. The manner in which the browser was designed and tested makes this developer very keen on trying it out. Of course, that means that the comic could be a really good infomercial as well - the proof will be in the using of the browser. But as far as getting me interested - as a good infomercial would - they had me at 'different processes'.

The whole idea, from a technology standpoint, was to rewrite the web browser in a modern context. This could be very good - web browsers are built on code and ideas that existed at the very start of the Internet as we know it and since then, we've been using browsers in ways that could not be foreseen. Web browsers are our portals to information available through different types of standards (and sometimes no standards).

Some of the stuff reminded me of my present toy, Kirix Strata, which is markedly different from any web browser due to the way it allows one to handle data. If Google's Chrome lives up to it's hype, it still won't do what Kirix Strata does - but a merging of the two would certainly be worthwhile. The folks at Kirix have done wonders with Strata over the last 3 years - frankly, if it had email I'd probably get rid of SeaMonkey. That might concern the Mozilla CEO - John Lilly - but his own take on Google Chrome lends itself toward 'wait and see'. And, of course, Mozilla doesn't seem to interested in the integrated path or Seamonkey would be better known than the standalone Firefox.

From a market standpoint - if Google delivers and stands behind Chrome, the landscape changes forever. If Chrome were not Open Source, I'd probably have concerns about the business practice of a web search engine manufacturing a web browser. That would be sort of like an operating system manufacturer embedding a browser in the operating system. But it is open source, so while Google can change licensing - tomorrow, the cat comes out of the bag and will never get back into that bag.

Overall, as a developer and consumer - I'm eager to see what Google's got behind that comic book. If it has integrated email, it may replace Seamonkey. If not, I'll be stuck with coexisting with Seamonkey until Google adds the email integration. And if it doesn't live up to it's hype... well, that would be bad.