Chrome - faster and better than IE

The buzz the past few weeks has been the new browser from Google, mysteriously named Chrome.

While it might seem weird for a search engine company to enter into the fiercely competitive browser market, presently dominated by the worst browser on the planet Internet Explorer there is a method behind Google's madness.

People don't realise that Google has been a thorn in Microsoft's side for at least the last couple of years.

You may know that Microsoft tried to buy Yahoo, who turned down the offer of obscene amounts of money to keep doing whatever it is they do at Yahoo. And Microsoft already has a search engine, the underwhelming MSN.

My guess is Microsoft wanted to leverage Yahoo as well so they could go head to head with Google and try for a slice of the billion-dollar search engine scene.

The thing is that Microsoft, while generally acknowledged as being adequate at building operating systems, servers and office suites, is totally naff at everything else.

It seems to think that with enough brains, brawn and money, everything it does will turn to gold.

Microsoft is wrong as anyone who has tried to use Microsoft's website will attest. It is, and always has been, an absolute horror to navigate.

This is because Microsoft have a way of doing things that is almost deliberately at odds with the way everyone else does things, their philosophy being that we should change to conform to their standards. This "wag the dog" approach is what sends some people into tailspins.

Imagine heavy-hitters from all the big organisations meeting over skim-milk lattes and creating standards that everyone agrees to adhere to.

Microsoft flatly refuses to accept this standard because they have their own way of doing the same thing. Um, no.

The problem is that with money and clout, Microsoft can call the shots to a large extent.

Take office documents for example. The default formats are now Word and Excel, no matter how hard the opposition tries to make it otherwise. Every new office suite on the market has, at the top of their feature list, Microsoft Office Compatible. If they aren't compatible, they won't sell.

Microsoft make millions from Windows, but Office is the real plum, with retail versions costing upwards of two arms and two legs.

Google took notice and, a few years back, launched an online suite of excellent office tools, including email, word processing, spread-sheeting, document storage and scheduling in a direct attempt at gaining some of that market share.

It worked. Many companies looked at their horrendous software bills (one copy of Office for every employee soon adds up in a company with thousands on the payroll) and decided to take the Google route, robbing market share from Microsoft that thorn I was talking about.

Now the team at Google have developed a web browser. They seem to have borrowed the best bits from Safari, Firefox and Opera and have then released it to the open source community, collectively firing a shot directly at Internet Explorer.

And Google has done well. Chrome is minimalistic, standards compliant, breathtakingly fast, featured yet lightweight and easy on the eyes. I love it, though with reservations.

Those who have Google products installed know that they phone home a lot. Chrome is sending all kinds of data back to base for whatever purposes Google has in mind for it.

I don't love that. If it was just usage statistics to make a better browser, then I might be cool with it, but monitoring my surfing so they can show targeted ads is too Big Brother for me.

Here's the thing: Google, with the hearty support of the open source community (motto: taking Microsoft down one line of code at a time) is in danger of becoming the very thing it despises, monopolising everything it touches and crushing smaller players along the way. Conspiracy theorists are already having heart palpitations over the possibilities.

I also hear whispers of a Google operating system. Web watchers are claiming that by 2010 a Google OS will be competing directly with Windows. That could make things interesting. Google Chrome is free, faster and better than Internet Explorer, but I bet I know which one people will still use.

Download Chrome from google.com/chrome

- © Fairfax NZ News