Could Chrome Achieve a Browser Coup Via Unprecedented Speed?
Just when it seemed the neck-and-neck competition between the two open source browsers setting the innovation pace--Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox--couldn't get any more tense, Google has thrown a Molotov cocktail into the fray. According to posts on the Chromium Blog, the Chrome browser is poised to become 60 times faster in its upcoming version 7 release. As Microsoft wheels out its Internet Explorer version 9, and as Mozilla has to consider the fact that Firefox's market share seems stalled while Chrome's is growing, competitors have to start taking Chrome very, very seriously.
"Not only did Google release a slew of patches affecting various vulnerabilities in the current version of the browser on Tuesday, but it also announced that new GPU acceleration advances in the upcoming version 7 are achieving speeds 60 times faster than in version 6."
The really notable thing here is that Chrome is already setting the performance pace for browsers. Chrome opens up much faster on my Windows computers than Firefox does, has a healthy set of extensions at this point, and is generally rocket fast. If Google achieves a huge performance improvement in GPU speed, and marries that with the best Javascript performance, then look out.
As we've already noted, the Chrome browser is just one iron that Google has in the fire with its overall Chrome strategy. Don't forget that Chrome OS is imminent, and will impose the Chrome interface on many new users. Meanwhile, the latest market share numbers only show Chrome taking share from IE and Firefox.
The Chrome browser will gain sophistication as Google throws funding and developers at improving Chrome OS--which is entirely built around the browser's interface. And, as we've mentioned before, it's worth remembering that Mozilla gets the bulk of its funding for Firefox from Google in a deal that comes up for review next year. The competition between the two leading open source browsers couldn't get more interesting to watch.