Chrome’s share came at the cost of Microsoft’s ever-famous Internet Explorer (IE), Opera Software ASA’s Opera, Mozilla Corp.’s Firefox, and even AOL LLC’s Netscape, all of which have suffered from browser share drop in the past two weeks.

In fact surprisingly Safari is the lonely contender that has escaped Chrome’s impact… As a matter of fact, Apple’s browser, has rather gained nearly 0.7 percentage points during the past 14 days!!

So apparently the market share hit from Chrome has now affected every major browser except Safari!

Suprisingly number of Website viewers using Chrome had peaked just two days after its launch, and since then had dropped before stabilizing for about 5% to 6%…

Undoubtedly Chrome is surely gonna give a hard time to all its competitors in the market, so Microsoft better watch out before its too late!!

Apart from the security flaws detected in the browser, another subject of mass criticism of the Chrome has been the user license; section 11 of the agreement, which pops up when the user downloads the software.

At launch, when i clicked on the link to download the application, it creepily read:

“By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.”…!!!!

That was absolutely insane! Why on earth would I or any one surrender all perpetual rights to any one just for using a web-browser, irrespective of how great it is… Although efforts from Google are highly appreciable to create a free open-source web-browser in form of Chrome i strongly feel that they must not annoy the public with such terms and conditions!

Eventually after a bit of controversy, Google has now changed it to:

“You retain copyright and any other rights that you already hold in Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services.”… Although this still sounds as though Google is doing you a big favor by saying so!


However the web always gets better with more options and innovation. Google Chrome is another option, and let us all hope that it contributes to make the web even better than ever before!!

You can download the beta version here, however be wary of the security flaws!!

Google Chrome browser is an instant hit and Google has already recorded over a million downloads. That’s great! But, what has it achieved? Who is getting affected? Are we thinking about the browser wars?

Geeks like me stood firmly on the open source side of the fence and supported the Firefox application mainly in various respects as we could. Our enemy and probably the only enemy was-and-is Internet Explorer. Volunteers spent hours contributing enhancements to the Firefox browser which we think has the best chance of overcoming the giant, Microsoft.

The introduction of Chrome has been cherished, but from who? It’s mainly the same geeks who have been using Firefox and not IE users. So, whose thunder is Chrome stealing? The common enemy or the one fighting along with it!

The world doesn’t need Google Chrome today. We have a working solution in Firefox and the need of the hour is to spread the word, evangelize in the name of Firefox. Bringing in a new alternative and a new leader will confuse the fighting forces and the enemy will be bolstered by it.

Google developers and Firefox coders must get together and build a stronger and better browser. Firefox already has a name; tons of add-ons, enhancements, and themes amongst others are already available. It makes sense to improvise Firefox with the unique features available on Chrome. Open source warriors need to stay united and this is the only way we can slay the giant.

Are you hearing the cry for unity, Google?

• Omnibox: The Omnibox is the URL box at the top of each tab, based on the one in Opera, which includes auto-complete functionality but auto-completes only URLs that were manually entered.

• Pop-ups: Popup windows “are scoped to the tab they came from” and will not appear outside the tab unless the user explicitly drags them out.

• Rendering engine: Chrome uses the WebKit rendering engine on advice from the Android team.

Some of the distinguishing features of Google Chrome include:

• Tabs: Tabs are the primary component of Chrome’s user interface and as such have been moved to the top of the window rather than below the controls resembling Opera!

• Webapps: Webapps can be launched in their own streamlined window without the Omnibox URL box and browser toolbar.

• Incognito: Chrome includes an Incognito mode, which is similar to Safari’s Private Browsing and Internet Explorer 8’s InPrivate!

• Blacklists: Chrome periodically downloads updates of two blacklists, first one being meant for phishing and other for malware, and warns users when they attempt to visit a harmful site.

This service is also made available for use by others via a free public API called “Google Safe Browsing API“.

There’s lot more associated with Chrome than you can guess… so just be on the hunt to discover more!

Google Chrome has many new advanced fabulous features such as gears, which add developer features could probably become web standards, typically relating to the building of web applications that even includes offline support.

Other interesting things about Chrome include:

• Sandboxing

• Gears

The beta version of long awaited web-browser from Google, the Google Chrome is gonna be finally out! The dedicated download links are not yet functional but that moment may not be far-off… So watch out Google Chrome is coming!! Doesn’t matter whatever comes out now, surely we can expect lotza’ improvement in subsequent releases!