What the Chrome is happening?

"Jordanian blogger Qwaider writes of his prediction that Chrome will eventually outdo Firefox in the browser wars." - Jillian C York posting on Global Voices

Syrian Yaser Sadeq says Google new browser Chrome is not available in Syria because “our friends in Google corp. have decided or agreed to withhold their services from Syrian users as part of the embargo by the U.S government against Syria.” - Amira al Hussaini on Global Voices

Bloggers around the world have been quick on taking up the latest browser in the market. As Qwaider in Jordan wrote:

Microsoft, killed Netscape navigator. Eight years later, Google is doing exactly the same thing to the popular browser, Firefox. This time using their own browser -er, excuse me, Application Shell. Relying on it's dominance of the search and services market.

According to recent amazing statistics from StatCounter, based on 250 Million page views globally, Chrome, is killing Firefox, Safari and Opera.

Surpassing Safari and Opera in it's first day, and going after Firefox next. Snatching a precious 4% of Firefox's market share in 3 days.

Surprisingly, IE's share grew 4% also, at who's expense do you think?

I still expect Google to play dirty. See your Google Analytics? Google has confirmed that it has been filtering out Chrome hits before it's release date. Which makes you wonder, what else is Google hiding? Or what will they hide next. But most importantly, are they going to be biased towards their own browser when comparing it to others in Analytics? You bet!

Chrome not so shiny - yet.

So is all of this important to day to day bloggers and web surfers? On the surface Chrome (in its present form) is basic in the extreme and yet if I was Microsoft I would be a little concerned about its rate of uptake and its potential down the track.

On the plus side Chrome it is extremely easy to use, super-fast and crash free. However on the negative, those of us who have been enjoying Firefox with all its plug-ins and little extras can only hope that Google have them waiting in the wings. At the moment it feels like going out in your underwear rather than in a nicely tailored outfit.

Early reviews have as "minimalist in the extreme", easy-to-use, crash-free and super-fast, but some have criticised its lack of support for certain features - most notably plug-in extensions - and poorly worded terms of use.

Essentially Chrome allows Google to put all its goodies in the one basket with the company's web applications including its search, Gmail and word processing tools accessed through the web browser. The obvious implication is that Google will have the ability to direct its users away from Microsoft which means web surfers will be exposed more frequently to Google ads.

Asher Moses in the Sydney Morning herald quotes Microsoft's general manager of Internet Explorer Dean Hachamovitch telling The New York Times he thought Internet Explorer 8 was better "for what people do every day again and again".

Speed test applications provided by Google show Chrome as being 10-15 times faster than competitors Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari.

However, Firefox creator Mozilla fired back with its own test results showing an upcoming version of Firefox performing up to 30 per cent faster than Chrome.

Both tests were based on the performance of JavaScript, the programming language that powers most internet applications.

The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg said his tests found that Chrome was slower at loading web pages than Firefox and Safari but faster than Internet Explorer 8.

CNET's Molly Wood, on the other hand, said Chrome was so fast she thought it must be a trick. "The tabs almost seem to click themselves; the autocomplete is so speedy that I thought it was reading my mind," she said.

Chrome in Morocco

Chrome is available and works in Morocco and our first (admitedly unscientific) trial-runs in the notoriously slow internet Fez Medina certainly showed off Chrome's speed. For Maroc telecom subscribers the speed will certainly be a plus. The lack of extensions and other plug-ins remains a problem but Google are certainly aware of this and will be on the case.

However I doubt that the uptake will be particularly fast in sectors other than the blogging community. Time will tell.

We would love to hear your thoughts on Chrome V Firefox (or Safari and Internet Explorer.)

Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news