Will Google Launch A Browser?

ServeYourWorld writes "The New York Post is reporting that 'Based on the half-dozen hires in recent weeks, Google appears to be planning to launch its own Web browser and other software products to challenge Microsoft.' I took a guess and did a whois search for Gbrowser.com and indeed Google Inc. is listed as the registrar."

Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

But will the download be invite only?

Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

Well considering the demise in market share of IE and the rise of alternative browsers - eg Opera, Firefox, Mozilla etc.... it would seem smart to bring out a browser.

Anyway - the way the beta system used to work was that it was invite only.... after all some people don't know how to write bug reports. :P

Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

Considering IE still has quite a lot of market share and once Microsoft's currently-vaporware search service gets around to launching it will likely promptly be highly "integrated" with every computer in the world running both IE and Windows Update... it would seem smart to bring out a browser.

Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

True, IE does have the lion's share of the browser market.

Interestingly enough, I reported on "user agents" at work today. Our web-based systems are used by many corporations throughout the world. All users are authenticated, and we strongly discourage robots. We stipulate that our users use "modern browsers"... we don't want to support outdated, buggy implementations.

[I still can't imagine that web designers don't design for all modern browsers. We have a large and sophisticated application costing millions, and I have to say that it cost about $100 to make sure that we could support just about everyone]

In any case, in my business, the IE6 market is almost exactly 67%. A year ago such a low number for IE was unthinkable. Happily, IE4 and IE5 combined are now well below 2%. [We don't support IE4 - piece of junk. IE5 is junky too: my case was to drop support, which I won.]

There are some NS4 users remaining, but only a handful [unsupported]. Mozilla and Firefox have, of course, taken a huge chunk of IE's business. Safari is a strong player on the Mac front, but it still has market to gain to completely overshadow IE5/Mac. The Mozilla family is fairly popular on the Mac, but Safari is still leading the way.

All the other browsers combined are less than 5%. That included Opera, Konqueror, Lynx, and other oddities and unknowns.

Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

All the other browsers combined are less than 5%. That included Opera, Konqueror, Lynx, and other oddities and unknowns.

You'd consider Lynx a modern browser?

Lynx is modern

Just because it doesnt display images doesn't mean it cant translate html.

Depending on the criteria you use, you could call lynx a more modern browser than IE6.

It has been developed more recently (Feb 2004 last major release)

Like every other browser in the world, results will improve if the webmaster devotes some time to it.

It works pretty well for strict xhtml.

Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

[I still can't imagine that web designers don't design for all modern browsers. We have a large and sophisticated application costing millions, and I have to say that it cost about $100 to make sure that we could support just about everyone]

You obviously have no QA or Development experience, do you? Maybe in your area coding for "all modern browsers" is trivial, but in many areas it is not. The changes just between versions of IE 4, 5, and 6 are fairly large from a design point of view. If you're throwing in Mozilla, Firefox, etc support, that adds a lot.

If you have a QA division that is responsible for making sure that all browsers "work properly" that requires testing on all the different browsers. Did I mention each set of browsers may need to be tested on multiple OSes as well?

Just because it only costs YOU $100 to do something that you say is trivial, does not mean that is anywhere near the case for others.

Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

You obviously have no QA or Development experience, do you? Maybe in your area coding for "all modern browsers" is trivial, but in many areas it is not. The changes just between versions of IE 4, 5, and 6 are fairly large from a design point of view. If you're throwing in Mozilla, Firefox, etc support, that adds a lot.

I couldn't agree more with this. A lot of people trivialize browser compatibility when it comes to web design - they either say "oh, just design to standards, and everything should work!" or they say "oh, just design to the lowest common denominator - if something doesn't work on one browser, just don't do it at all."

Well, the problem with the first approach is it just plainly doesn't work. Whether or not something should work a particular way in a particular browser doesn't matter - it's whether or not it does work that matters. Every browser renders CSS a little differently, for example; even the functions that actually do work across browsers just look different depending on which browser you're running.

The problem with the second approach is that it leaves you with basically HTML 2.0 to work with. And honestly, that's fine for some sites (it really is), but if you want to do anything at all interesting, it's just not workable.

So the only thing you can really do is just design and code a site for the most popular browser out there and then hope it works with the others. If it doesn't, you try to fix it so it does - but depending on what you're doing, it may not even be possible without tossing what you've done and starting over (and then when you're done re-doing everything, some other browser that worked before will probably be broken with the new implementation).

My last job was working in the new media division of a major game publisher (you can guess which one if I tell you it's the only one doing anything interesting on the web). We designed all of our sites in-house. We built for IE, because up until I left it was about 95% of our audience, and then we QA'd for other browsers (this was generally my job; I was the militant browser dude on staff). Invariably, there were things that either didn't work or worked differently than we'd intended on certain browsers. Most of the time these things could be fixed but it was not always trivial, and it was usually one of three things that caused the problem: CSS, JavaScript, or Flash action scripting.

At the end of any particular project we'd usually spend at minimum several days troubleshooting browser problems. Given that we were in-house you can't really put a dollar value on that, but if you just divided up all of our salaries for that time period I guarantee you're talking tens of thousands of dollars on every project. That's time we could otherwise be spending creating something new instead of stuck fixing something that's otherwise finished, or it's time we could have otherwise used for things we'd have to contract freelancers for (so it did directly cost us money in many cases, and way more than $100).

It's easy to say "well you should have just used standards" and it's easy to blame it all on IE but that's way too simplistic. Because for one thing, in marketing you're not just going to put up a site full of text, you need to use things for which there are no standards, such as Flash. Honestly, if somebody invented something open-source and standardized that does everything Flash can do, and then they managed to convince the world to run browsers supporting it, we'd have jumped all over it. But Flash is what it is; it's proprietary and unfortunately there's nothing else comparable that's popular. So you have to design in Flash, and when you've got, for example (and this actually happened to us), a button in your Flash that is supposed to open a file dialogue box on your machine and it works on IE and works on Firefox and works on Opera but doesn't work on Mozilla and doesn't work on Safari, what are you supposed to do? If you've got an inte

Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

Perhaps they'll release a *BSD based *OS* for X86, with a KILLER search engine feature...

... and the Google Browser as integrated part?

To configure your printer, you'd go to the URL device:printer/printername/ and if you don't know which printer queue goes to your Canon, you just search for "Queue Printer Canon" and press "I feel lucky".

Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

It will be nothing like the gspot.

Google browser? Too awkward. They should...

call it the "Growser".
I can already see how it will revolutionize the english language:

Joe: "Hey Hank, did you growse that info?"
Hank: "Yeah, my growser growsed it up real good."
Joe: "That's some mighty fine growsing, Hank."

Re:Google browser? Too awkward. They should...

Better yet:

- I used my growser to google for that info and gmail it to my friend.

Re:Google browser? Too awkward. They should...

Growser? I think I'd prefer Broogle.

Re:Google browser? Too awkward. They should...

Other possible projects:

Gstring - an advanced C++ library that not only includes an inovative version of the string datatype, but has lightning fast, built in parsing and search commands.

Gspot - a new and less expensive alternative to Starbucks coffee shops.

Re:Google browser? Too awkward. They should...

Gspot - a new and less expensive alternative to Starbucks coffee shops.

Trouble is, you can never find it

Re:Google browser? Too awkward. They should...

Trouble is, you can never find it

Try asking the guy in the canoe in front of that bush over there.

Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

Must everybody in the world have thier own broswer these days? We are already plagued by interoperability in browsers, Operating Systems, Instant messengers, etc... I know it's always good to have a choice, but not when it's this complicated. I support multiple choices, but I'd like them all to at least work, as well as work together.


You know, if everyone just stuck with the standards, this would be a non-issue.

Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

You know, if everyone just stuck with the standards, this would be a non-issue.

If I had a mod point for everytime someone said that...

Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

The nice thing about standards, there is enough for everybody to have their own.

Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

You do make a good point - but a robots.txt file would be of negligable bandwidth and specific search engines the site owner wishes to use can be allowed whereas everything else can be disabled - problem solved.

Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

The more big browsers there are, the more standards-compliant they must become (though not necessarily W3C standards). This is the opposite of instant messaging - your users must be able to access all content. Web coders would have to be compliant to ensure that people on all browsers could see content, as well. Ten browsers at 10% market share each would be much better than one at 75%.

Easy, rebrand firefox

Really, what prevents Google from making cosmetic changes to Firefox/Mozilla. There is already the built in Google Search. Perhaps they would integrate a Gmail mail client.

Or perhaps, I'm talking out my ass.

Re:Easy, rebrand firefox

Firefox, MSIE, and Safari already have integrated Gmail clients -- the browsers themselves. A notifier and mailto handler might be nice, too, but that can be handled equally well with a plug-in.

Re:Easy, rebrand Internet Explorer?

Oh, I see a Gecko- (or KHTML-) based browser as quite a likely alternative.

Firstly, art of Google's much-hyped corporate philosophy is 'don't be evil'. With that in mind, are they going to trust their brand to MSIE's security record? XPSP2 appears to be a major improvement, but it's still not in the same zip code as 'secure'. Gecko/KHTML seem to be much closer to the mark.

Second, the 'don't be evil' directive would seem to point towards wanting a standards-compliant solution, not a 'standards? what for?' solution.

Third, their history is pro-standards, pro-open APIs: Blogger is XHTML+CSS, and largely (if not entirely) valid. They also implemented the soon-to-be-standardized Atom as their primary syndication API, rather than the wilder-and-woolier RSS. Seems to me that history points more towards an OSS/standards-compliant solution rather than an MSIE shell.

Third, it isn't exactly a secret that MS sees Google as a threat. MS's history being what it is, would a company in their sights roll out a service/product based entirely on MS technology? With as many smart people as Google has, I'm not so sure they would.

Fourth, I don't think the cost of development personnel would have anything to do with it. Google's hiring practices are almost as famous as Microsoft's: they go for the very brightest available (one thing you can't say about Microsoft is that they hire dumbasses--or even just smart foks; they hire scary-smart folks). I don't see any reason they'd change that practice for a browser.

Finally, I don't know as the Google toolbar is evidence one way or another. The toolbar has been implemented (including PageRank) in a Mozilla extension already. I can see Google not much caring about other browsers previously as Moz's market share was teensy-to-non-existent when the Google Toolbar was released, Safari wasn't released yet, NN4 was a nightmare and IIRC neither it nor Opera were anywhere near as extensible as IE at the time. Gecko UAs are just now showing up in sufficient numbers to take seriously, but with a Google toolbar already available why bother?

The only strong counter-argument I see is compatibility: lots of 2nd-tier sites -- and a few 1st-tier sites -- are indifferent to hostile to non-IE/Win browsers and standards. I can see Google being loathe to tarnish their brand by releasing a browser that a whole lot of people would see as broken because it doesn't work with site X, Y or Z.

Still, I think the argument for a non-IE browser is stronger than the argument for an IE shell.

Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

Apple has an image browser called gBrowser. Wonder if that will cause problems with the naming of a google browser...

http://homepage.mac.com/schwarz/gbrowser.html

Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

That's not Apple's website, it's a personal .mac homepage for some guy. I think it's unlikely he has registered the gBrowser trademark.

Let me guess:

It tracks everything you surf so it can display relevant ads. No thanks, I'll stick with Firefox.

Let's just hope that Gmail still works with other browsers.

Re:Let me guess:

Opera already does that if you enable the Google TextAds feature... with Google, no less.

Re:Let me guess:

Well, adblocking techniques have existed for a long time, and are available for just about all browsers... including IE. The target demographic of any upstart browser is the uninformed IE user. The kind of person who's taskbar is filled with hundreds of unnoticed IE instances in the form of pop-ups (unders in that case?). You and I can certainly rid our lives (to a certain extent) of internet advertising, but as it is, without a well marketed and simple solution, the masses cannot.

The fact that such a thing doesn't exist is proof that people have learned to live with and expect ads. What do they care if yet another sits atop their browser?

Re:Let me guess:

Does it ever occur to you people that maybe not everyone likes the same things you do?

Honest - other people have opinions, they really do. Maybe YOU don't prefer Opera, but the original poster does. Mentioning the benefits and your opinion of Firefox is fine, but don't be a condescending jackass just because they prefer Opera.

Cripes.. if you like Firefox, fine - I love Firefox, it's my absolute number one browser of choice, but that doesn't mean I'm so utterly wrapped up in myself and my own thought processes that I don't recognize that maybe some other people don't like it the same way I do.

Re:Let me guess:

Does it ever occur to you people that maybe not everyone likes the same things you do?

Yes, it did occur to me, and I was curious why the poster chose Opera. He left IE because of the ads, so why did he choose Opera which still has some ads rather than Mozilla which has none?

Re:Let me guess:

it tracks every site you visit and doesn't let you delete the history.

Yeah, but it gives you a gigabyte of bookmarks :)

Re:Let me guess:

Firefox already does that [mozilla.org]. (Well, it doesn't exactly track you, and it only displays relevant ads if you want it to.)

Re:Let me guess:

From what I understood by reading the article, they might actually be planning to release some sort of modified version of Mozilla. Having more browsers using the Gecko engine sure can't be a bad thing. Plus, it will put some pressure on Microsoft to improve their browser and actually support standards.

If Google places it's name on a browser, it will sure become popular in a matter of days.

The success of standards depend on having multiple quality implementations. Right now, this remains a problem as only Mozilla does it right (Safari seems to be fine but I never really tested it).

Re:Let me guess:

I dunno. If Google does come out with a new browser, it would half to offer something that I Just Can't Live Without

A grammar checker for text input boxes is something you might not want to live without.

Konqueror already does this.

like the subject says Konqueror can already check the spelling but not the grammer to good

Re:Let me guess:

"A grammar checker for text input boxes is something you might not want to live without."

A grammar checker for text input boxes is something without which you might not want to live.

I mean, if pedantry's your thing or anything.

Re:Let me guess:

Young man, this is the sort of insolence up with which I will not put!

-W. Churchill (apocryphally)

Re:Let me guess:

I simply half to halve a talk with ur teechers. They failed it.

Sincerely;
-Grammar Nutsie

Re:Let me guess:

> So we can find ourselves in a situation where
> one popular browser's (or rending engine) tics
> and weirdness dictates how to write webpages
> like IE does now?

As a core Gecko developer, I promise you that we are committed to fixing any tics and weirdnesses that deviate from published Web standards, and this will remain true even in the unlikely event we find ourselves with a monopoly. For Web developers, this means that if they rely on bugs of ours that deviate from Web standards, then we will eventually break their content.

Because we're open source, you don't even have to trust me. If you ever feel that Mozilla.org is abusing its position, you are welcome to gather followers, fork the code and carry the project on in whatever direction you wish.

Re:Let me guess:

see the last comment in this bug (see the dates, too) (cant link, bugzilla dont want to be slashdotted)

http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2265 72

Re:Let me guess:

Bug 226572 - Google branded Mozilla browser [bugzilla.mozilla.org]

"This is a duplicate of a private bug about working with Google. So closing this one"

pull out your tinfoil hats.

Re:Let me guess:

they sure don't care much about privacy.

I think "privacy" is something that means different things to different people.

would it make a difference to you if Google explicitly guaranteed that no *human* entity would get to look at your data, and that any machine-automated use of the data would be limited to a specific task (and nothing else, and never would this be changed without your consent)? In such a situation I wouldn't mind.

I absolutely do not want some human person mucking about through information about my online purchases etc., but - assuming Google can handle their systems well enough not to be rooted by anybody - i really could not care less if some machine decides to flag down my activity and ask me if I wanted yet another SATA drive for a good price (and the answer is yes!).

until the machines become self-aware, conscious entities, I would assume they could care less (or rather, are *incapable* of caring) what I want to buy online either (actually, if Google's systems DID emerge into consciousness, I doubt it'd find my online activities interesting either. "Hanging out on Slashdot? doesn't this guy have anything better to do?"). The only thing to worry about would be whether, through incompetence or maliciousness, our data is exploited for some other purpose. if it's a rules-based system "if X user keeps hitting star wars paraphernalia sites, offer X user star wars adverts", and no nefarious individual finds out this info ("hrm, I'll bait him with a fake ebay sale"), what harm is there? (honest question - I'd like to know).

Re:Let me guess:

I absolutely do not want some human person mucking about through information about my online purchases etc

But could a google cookie really do that? Let's say I go to amazon.com (by typing it into the browser window). I buy a book. How the hell can google find out I even went to the site, let alone bought a book? This fear of a cookie to me seems ridiculous. From what I've been taught They're not that powerful. Honest question.

Of course...

The NY Post is never wrong.

Re:Of course...

from the article:

The concept floundered, but programmers note that Google could easily pick up the ball. Already, its Gmail free e-mail system gives users 100 megabytes of storage space on a remote network -- providing consumers a virtual hard drive.

spot the deliberate mistake?

Re:I hope there is more to this.

I think lots of people have doubted what Google can produce, but so far (to my knowledge), Google has succeeded with everything. Last yearm who would have believed you if you said that Google would offer e-mail? Not many people.

For the browser, all of Google's tools will be integrated. Think about this: spell checking when you post, the ability to click on "blog this (already available on Google's tool bar), interrelated Gmail, possibly image searching on your computer and on the internet simultaneously.

If the Google browser is good, free, and has no or only Google text ads, and has lots of features, I'll switch. If Google can make my life easier, I'm all for it.

It gets even better

Check out GOS.com.

Google is launching a new OS based on Gloucestershire health clubs! Come on now, not even MS or Apple has thought of that one. [grins]

Re:Open Source?

Can google compete with open-source options like mozilla and opera?

Yes.

("English for Geeks" Tip of the Day: To obtain verbose output, include the keyword how at the beginning of your query.)

Re:Open Source?

Can google compete with open-source options like mozilla and opera?

From the article

Last month, Google hosted Mozilla Developer Day on its campus, a gathering of programmers that work together to build sequels to the re-named Netscape browser.

They might just jump on board and make a re-branded mozilla (or firefox, in fact probably firefox). The only problem with that is mozilla is still a touch flaky at times and I'm not sure that the current firefox designs will fit in with googles current design philosophy which is the embodiment of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). Gmail for all it's little goodies is still very utilitarian, the google search engine itself is the epitomy of simplicity, firefox while an amazing piece of software and simpler than mozilla just doesn't have nearly this level of simplicity. Google may choose to go with firefox due to the already existing user base and code but doing something along the lines of Safari is certainly an option that must be considered (and considering googles history is something I'm very interested to see).

On the other hand this is all still a bunch of speculation. Look at the evidence so far, they have a former lead Java guy from Sun, also

The company also hired four people who worked on Microsoft's Web browser, Internet Explorer, and later founded their own company. One of them, Adam Bosworth, is credited with being a driving force not only behind IE, but Microsoft's database-management program, Access.

Could be a browser yeah, but what did these guys do in this new company? Also note that the biggest hire was also a database guy.

Most recently, Google grabbed Joe Beda, the lead developer on Avalon, Microsoft's code name for the user interface that will part of the next version of Windows, called Longhorn.

Nice catch if you ignore the jokes about Microsoft UI but certainly nothing specific to web browsers there that I can see. More on mozilla day,

Mozilla, which is "open source" and available to anyone, could be shaped to Google's specifications and be embedded with Google search, Gmail free e-mail and other Google applications.

Seems to me that they're making the logical move of trying to see if they can get google stuff is integrated into mozilla. The last bit is perhaps the most telling,

Other blogs and analysts believe Google is working on an instant-messaging program and a Web browser to challenge Internet Explorer.

Well if bloggers and analysts are saying so then it MUST be true!! The fact is that google is everyones favorite company so we're rooting for it to get into the front lines of the browser wars, the place where Microsoft is considered most vulnerable by the geek population. I hope that google is working on a browser, I hope it will blow IE out of the water but there's a difference between wishful thinking and fact. Look at the main apps that google does have, google itself, the google toolbar, and gmail, wonderful apps but from a users perspective extremely simple and not subject to the whims of screwy users systems, I can't imagine them jumping into the browser wars where they don't hold all the cards (dependent on the OS) and the product is orders of magnitude more complex, I just don't think it's gonna happen.

The instant messaging program however, now that I can see, little more complex but still very simple and a somewhat natural extension for them (bring up ads and stuff based on conversations and easy searching in logs like gmail).

GTalk anyone?

GBrowser

I hear it's being developed in space. [google.com]

Re:GBrowser

I hear it's being developed in space.

I didn't think anyone could hear in space.

Rich web apps

Google develops the rich web app stack. Applications can be deployed through the web with richer interfaces then HTML provides.

Google has some of these apps (search, email etc).

Google get's richer.

Re:Rich web apps

Well, with the recent explosion of web based applications like Gmail, it was only a matter of time before someone developed the web-based browser.

You won't need to keep a browser installed on your PC anymore. Wherver you are, you can just log on to http://browser.google.com with, um, oh wait...

Nope

The company (Google) also hired four people who worked on Microsoft's Web browser...

Woooh! I think not.

It would be more commendable . . .

If they propagated a Mozilla-based browser such as Firefox to their users. At one time I was a defender of Google, always citing their mantra of "Don't be evil," however I'm not quite sure what their intentions may be.

Best search engine? Perhaps. But let's leave it at that.

Don't be blinded by the generosity; they're potentially gearing up to be just as wicked of a monopoly as Microsoft. Whether their intentions are clear or not, that probably should not be happening, since too much power has a tendency to corrupt -- except under very exceptional circumstances.

Re:It would be more commendable . . .

You can trace back most of the problems with Google down to one person. CEO Eric E. Schmidt.

Eric has had a wonderful track record of running companies into the ground and doing stupid stuff. Novell (which rebounded after he left), SUN (in which he screwed over JAVA), and Xerox PARC (how many good ideas slipped through their fingers?).

One of my professors, after Schmidt came onto Google, told us in class "Enjoy Google while it lasts, its going to start to expand into other areas and start to fail" and I am really afraid that he is going to turn out to be right.

When Froogle came out I started to be afraid, when Gmail came out, I started to worry more, if this turns out to be true, I really weep for the future.

Re:It would be more commendable . . .

What exactly are the "problems" with Google?

I can't see what you might possibly find offensive about Froogle and Gmail, or why their respective releases made you "afraid" for the future of Google.

Re:It would be more commendable . . .

I think he raises valid concerns, perhaps not very well articulated though.

His concern is that Google, under Schmidt, will 'diversify' and try to be everything for everybody, and stretch too thin for their own good.

Another concern is their approach to privacy. They log every search tied to the IP address forever. The same in Gmail, where they don't delete messages. These things were covered in the media as concerns from users, but there was no satisfactory response.

Don't get me wrong. I love Google as a search engine. I could not live without it. However, as I said before [slashdot.org] companies change, and are driven by pragmatism, not ethics. Google is now a publicly traded company. Will they be the next evil Microsoft? Maybe. I hope not though.

Re:It would be more commendable . . .

The same in Gmail, where they don't delete messages.

Of course they delete messages. All it says in the TOS is that messages may not be deleted instantly, because it's a distributed storage system with a lot of backups.

Re:It would be more commendable . . .

This is why Microsoft developing a search engine and Google developing a web browser is a good thing - you can't be too evil if you have a competitor people could easily switch to, e.g. the Redmond boys have more than enough money to throw at developing a search engine to equal Google, and Google has enough support in the OSS community to write a cool browser and then slap a well-known, respected corporate name on the boilerplate and use it to trounce IE.

Even if Google did 'go bad', then two evil companies fighting against each other can only be a good thing, as neither can be too evil or they will lose too much market and mind share to the other side. That's the beauty of the system. Of course, like the US elections, a two-horse race doesn't always give the people at the bottom much choice, but it ensures that neither side goes total fascist/monopolist on us.

Gindows

At this rate, we'll see gindow.com registered by google.com in no time.

Re:Gindows

Yeah, but then they'd have to rename it to gin-dash.

More competition

What if Google can do something or have something (an idea) which no other browser has implemented? Google has already shaken up the search market and is now shaking up the email market with its Gmail service. What happens if lighting can strike a third time and create some sort of healthy competition for the brower market once again? At least mindshare would come from it and people would realise there is more than just IE out there. A lot of people use google and they are not geeks either, which is what we want.

'Will Google Launch A Browser?'

Short answer: No.
Long answer : Yes.

Web-based web-browser

I took a guess and did a whois search for Gbrowser.com and indeed Google Inc. is listed as the registrar.

I suspect that they will begin offering a web-based web-browsing solution (like gmail, but for HTTP) with roughly a gigabyte of bandwidth usage per day. This will no doubt be great competition for the other web-based web browsers, like ...
Er, wait a second...

Invite only...

The current gmail marketing campaign [tech-recipes.com] is working well...

The invite system allows the system to reduce the amount of load at one time... reduce the amount of beta testing, etc.

GMail, GBrowse, GAnything -- they work because they remind people of this "wonderful" thing called google. As long as the letter G is associated with bigger and better, Google can send rumors of any google product...

Any press... any rumors... is good for google.

I honestly hope...

... that the good folks @ Google are prepared for their first massive *shrug* from the masses. It would take something extraordinary for me to switch from Firefox at this point. I would imagine the same from a lot of people. They could cash in on the IE-weary public, looking for a change, but those of us using Gecko-based browsing are quite fanatical about it. :)

Searching

I guess we know what their default search engine will be ;D

Trademark registered yet?

Hopefully this time they will think to register the trademark early. But just in case, I'll just go ahead and submit this here application for Gbrowser, my new line of eyebrow glitter!

This totally fits with Google's recent hires...

Back in July Dare Obasanjo noted on one of his blog posts [25hoursaday.com] that Google was hiring a bunch of people from the IE browser team and couple of Java guys from Sun.

For some reason

People seem to think that everything that google ever does is a god-sent gift!

I think it's about time (Especially after the IPO), that people would realize that google, is first and foremost a company that's "in-it" for the money.
with the word, money, being a key-word,
especially when it comes to its shareholders.

Soon enough, pressure from that direction would reach into company policy, and google would cease "doing no evil" ...

I suggest, that we should all objectively judge each and every new product or service that google offers.

Personally, I think a whole lot of very talented people are working together on the mozilla project, and they've been doing so for years.
Why would anyone with a right-mind think
that google could do any better in the short term?

If anything, A usable product is YEARS from being ready, and by that time, who knows how powerful and advanced firefox or some other "now-working" browser would become?

Kottle: The Google Browser

See this 1 month old blog entry: The Google Browser [kottke.org]

Will it use pigeons to display web content?

That would be awesome, but incredibly messy.

The power of G baby

Well, it certainly seems like Google is taking over everything that's G. Yes. You read that right. Eventually, everything that starts with the letter 'G' (or 'g') would be owned by Google.

As other fellow /.ers have already suggested in previous posts and including the article, some of the ideas include gbrowser, gos, gthis, gthat, ginternet and gindows amongst others. Well, it all sounds fine and dandy. Now I just hope they will leave the gspot out of their jurisdiction.

Can't find the damn thing anyway.

Re:The power of G baby

Behind the pubic bone, near the urethra. Go in about 3 inches with your palm up and make a "come here" gesture with your finger.

Tempted to add some sort of joke here, but I'm shooting for "Informative" so I can get a little karma.

My guess...

1. The Internet, like Microsoft OS's and the English language is a sloppy, rag tag place that we're stuck with because everyone uses it
   
2. You can make the Internet more of a killer app by finding ingenious ways to deal with the sloppy data (i.e., google search engine)
   
3. ...or you can try and augment and clean up the mess with a new protocol or feature.
   
4. If you do the latter, you will never escape the compatibility/integration hell of Internet Explorer. This is what killed Java, and is the reason that most web pages that try and do something innovative (e.g. gmail) either take a lifetime to code or just never freaking work right. That is, only the Googles or the Netscapes of the world can write and deploy apps that the average programmer *should* be able to do.
   
5. But if you create a killer new HTML feature, and people embrace it, and you provide a client that deals with it cleanly, consistently and also handles the previous cruft, you may have a coup in the works.
   
6. This is why if Sun really wanted Java to take off as the defacto language of the *client side* Internet, they should have bought Netscape when it had a big chunk of the market. They learned the hard way that you can never trust another vendor to correctly support an operating environment that's not based on open standards. Similarly, this is why (thank goodness) ActiveX never caught on save for a few custom corporate apps.
   

Re:My guess...

> Similarly, this is why (thank goodness) ActiveX
> never caught on save for a few custom corporate apps.

Not to mention millions of spyware products. :)

Gecko Based...

Unless Google's engineers are stupid (hint: they're not) or the lawyers step in, I'm betting it'll be gecko based with Google customized Search, relavance and security features. If they're really smart they'll make it open sourced. That'd be nice. Yeah

Don't be evil!

When will companies stop trying to do everything under the sun and just be the best at what they already do? I mean, what complaints do people have about the current set of browsers available that a new one is needed? Firefox is the shit and is absolutely free. I don't need a Google browser. I need the best damn search engine in the world.. period.

Oh and lest I forget.. Isn't it Microsoft's practive of jumping into every market related to computing what gives them that evil red aura? Now here Google ("Don't be evil.") is starting down that path. Sheesh..

Heavy XUL hooks could make this a killer

ActiveX part deux, but this time it works. If Google was to push a site linked to XUL apps in a gecko-based browser, they could start owning the desktop outright.

The key is tying the apps to the browser. If its just yet-another gecko browser, this will have limited impact.

Re:Heavy XUL hooks could make this a killer

The problem with XUL isn't with XUL :) it's with the javascript you need to interface with XUL. There's no documentation. You try to get stuff done and quickly discover that simple things that claim to work don't and if you're trying to do anything dynamic like change a style sheet at runtime there's no documented way to do it.

Re:Heavy XUL hooks could make this a killer

There's no documentation.

That's what I've been saying for months. I even got chided by some big-name Mozilla devs here on Slashdot for saying that the reason Microsoft's XAML will trounce all over XUL is because you can bet your ass XAML and all supporting infrastructure will be fully documented, because if you've ever seen MSDN, you know its staggeringly comprehensive. "Go to XULPlanet," I was told, "everything is documented there."

Truth be told, XULPlanet only really documents maybe half the API. Sure, the interface definitions are there for the rest, but there's no description for most of it beyond the method names; the sample code coverage is virtually nil; and if you flip a coin and it comes up tails, XULPlanet.com will be down when you try to visit it and you need to hope that the incomplete mirror at mozdev has the page you want.

After they ship Firefox 1.0, the best thing the Mozilla team could possibly do is to shift their resources to documenting. After documenting, finish up the XRE (come on, how many years is it overdue now?), then switch to evangelizing the platform a little more -- but not until the developer support doc is in place, and not until it can be deployed standalone.

GSuite

What would be very interesting, and perhaps very cool, is if they were to comeup with a webbrowser that also loaded applications from the the google servers, either on a pay basis, or ad supported.

Things like a decent word proccessor, spreadsheet, email client (linked with gmail), chat program, etc. A whole office suite, but one that is (cached locally) loaded over the internet. Of course security/feature updates would be automatatic, and you could use your 1gb of gmail space to also store files created by, or uploaded to, the office suite.

The apps themselves would have to be platform independent, which I guess would mean java, and the browser itself should install via some sort of super easy and fast webpage. The browser should be a modified version of some GPL program, like Firefox or Konqueror, so there would be hope of decent security and platform independence.

The thing is

Safari has a google search field right in the nav bar...

Firefox has a google search field right in the nav bar...

A significant number of IE users use GoogleBar...

Why even bother making a web browser? At the moment, if it isn't IE, it's effectively Google. And even if it is IE, it's possibly Google.

Moreover, how do we know that Google's actually hiring these people to make a new web browser? Maybe they're being hired to make a new and improved version of GoogleBar, or something neat and different we haven't even thought of.

And if it is a browser it's probably going to be a branded version of Firefox. I don't really think four people is enough to write an html rendering engine all by themselveses.

Re:The thing is

It may not be about the broswer per say - but about better search results provided, in conjunction with, limited (or extensive) advertising revenue.

Think of it this way. Right now you have "page rank", which is determined by incoming links in particular the weight (page rank) of the pages on which these links reside, and the number of other pages to which these pages link. In short your operating under the theory that important pages link to relevant, important pages.

This theory is brilliant in the vaccume of six years hence. This theory is subject to manipulation today - a victom of its success, the defunct yahoogles unbeatable market share, and the many schemes which have been devised to inaccuratly influence page rank, google bombs, affiliate directories, link farms, and most recent, text link advertising.

Enter the study not of what webmasters do - but what humans do. Millions upon millions of people whose privacy is lost in the quest for better result, people who search and click and go back and close popups and eventully lead you to the mecca that *should have* appeared first in your results. People and patterns and masses of data that categorize bad results and good results. Jack and Jane and 10,000 friends who spent an average of .13 sec on the top result, mostly missed the second, heroically fought of a cloaked redirect on the third site and then generally settled on number 4

You cannot utilize these people (effectively) with js or url tracking codes because you dont know wheteher they stopped searching because they gave up, or because they found their mecca, or because there crappy browser got infected with yet another piece of spyware, or because they are utter morons incapible of using the internet. You cant use them with the toolbar because pagerank and non-anonymity is only of interest to those who desire most to skew your results (seo-types). You cant track them in gmail because it has nothing to do with surfing. The other services you mention - such as mozbar dont provide information to google (officially page rank is proprietary and only to be implemented by google which it has been for exactly one browser and is off by default).

However you enter the browser market - get say a 25% market share within your first year (notably not with firefox or mozilla or any open source project because you want a unique offering, not a privacy crippled ad bloated version of a better product), and are able to proveide the results that users most want. The bigger your market the more infallable your results and the more minute any form of manipulation becomes.

In short, my privacy is a tradeoff for the results I want. It eliminates manipulation, it cannot be duplicated by microsoft (IE in its current state will go where the spyware tells it to reguardless of the users intention), and it will prove viral if it catches on (conceptually take off the tinfoil for better results is not unlike open source - devote my time for the software I want).

Sure Google's competing with Microsoft...

but what about poor GNOME? We're going to run out of g-based application names! Time to develop a new g-based naming system that expands the address space...

Too much?

C'mon, i love Google as much as anyone else, but is it really necesary? I mean, with the Google Toolbar already available for download and stuff. Integrated GMail would be nice too, but there's already a lot of perfectly useable browsers. Hell, i even like Opera's Google search better than any toolbar.

I don't know, i get a little jumpy when i see companies (that i like, if that's possible) diversifying too much instead of focusing on what they do best. Usually it's a sign of bad things coming.

Re:Too much?

It could well be a form of self-protection rather than a "hey let's get into every business we can" move.

Back before Microsoft got involved, Netscape had a near monopoly on browsing. They were the de-facto standard. Today, Google is pretty much the de-facto standard for search though I doubt they have as much market share as Netscape did back then.

Behold the power of bundling with Windows. Netscape is no more. Why? Because Microsoft controlled the gateway through which people accessed their software. Given the noises MS has been making about competing "strongly" with Google lately, they must be scared the same would happen to them except via IE instead of the operating system.

So, they want to produce their own browser, so it gets market share. That way nothing Microsoft does to IE (integrated search etc) can hurt them too much, because not many people are using IE.

It would make sense for them to base it on Firefox. It's a best-of-breed browser, portable, and is going places. But, it lacks marketing! While the current Mozilla efforts are commendable, they'd be nothing compared to being promoted on the Google webpages.

At least, this is the reasoning I'd use if I were them. It's not so much to branch out into new business, as to protect existing ones ...

Keep your eyes out for

Googzilla... - Rob

I just made a stupid post.....

Then had a crazy idea.

Imagine: The Google Desktop Environment.

Complete with Gbrowser, the universal filemanager/web browser/gmail client, uber everything all rolled into one.

Windows, Linux, Mac versions available now.

*shivers*

And, of course, all your 'google' apps are all cross-platform, since the client is all crazy java/web stuff anyways.

Sorta google toolbar on steroids. /me goes back to sleep, leaves stupid dreamland.

Half-dozen hires != much software

Perhaps you can't enter a URL and just get google on the browser.

Mozilla...

Instead of developing a new browser, I would like to see Google releasing the browser as a re-packaging of Mozilla.

Hence we can have one more standard-conforming browser and, by using the reputation and power of Google, to ask those "View only with IE" sites to change!

A Google Browser makes sense

It really does. It seems logical that since most people just assume Google is the only search engine anyway, that a Google Browser would seem to be a logical step in the company's progression.

HOWEVER, I am a little worried that at some point, people want so much to fight one monster that they create another to combat it.

Google search, GMAIL, the big IPO, GBrowser........GOffice for your web based DOC sharing, etc, etc, etc.

I like Google Search and I like GMAIL, but at the same time, whenever I see a company heading down the road to tell me that I should use them for my "complete online computing experience", I do feel a little uncomfortable.

I am not saying that is the case, and I am not saying any of this is bad. I like what Google is doing right now because new innovation is a good thing. But at the same time, I am aware of another company that wants everything I use to have their name attached to it and I am always keeping both eyes open.

EMacs Toolbar...

Well after they came out with the EMacs toolbar, i pretty much knew anything was possible....

Hmm, what could only a Google brand browser do?

Spellchecking as you go (and other client-side things) for g-mail?

Recommending pages you might like by feeding your history/bookmarks into a central database?

Making google's web index more complete by flagging unindexed pages to HQ?

None of the aboue sound very convincing reasons to write a browser to me, However, Firefox + some bells & whistles with the Google name and clout behind it could kill IE stone dead... and the wide adoption of an ad-blocking browser would push advertisers towards google text ads in their droves.

The $64,000 question is, would this 'be evil'?

Bring out your browser!

man with cart: Bring out your browser!

internet explorer: I'm not dead yet!

opera: Ie Iesu domine! *thwap*

internet explorer: I'm getting better!

Reasons to jump to a new browser

What google would do well to remember is that human beings are creatures of habit, and they won't jump ship without a reason. Right now people are flocking to firefox for their windows web browsing needs because mozilla presented something they didn't have, security. While google's branding and high visibility will no doubt help them get their browser out there, they also need to present their browser as having something that neither firefox nor IE have. IE lacks security, customizability, and compactness, but it can be managed across the board by tools such as group policy. It can also be patched across an enterprise with tools like SUS. Firefox brings security and customizability to the table, but it isn't yet manageable in an enterprise network. Firefox also can't handle Microsoft-specific technologies such as activeX. Were google to bring all of the above to the table, it would be a formidable browser indeed.

Re:Registered Domains Don't Mean Much

I agree It doesn't mean that much to have the domain registered.

However I do find it interesting when they registered gbrowser.com

Created on..............: 2004-Apr-26.

vs gmail.com

Created on..............: 1995-Aug-13.

Speed baby speed !!

Unlike my wife, faster is ALWAYS better. If Google brings anything at all to the table it's a simple clean elegant design interface that flat out runs rings around everything else. All the extra gorpacomplexificationocitudeness should only be bolted on as snap on applications and only when necessary.

Handfuls of seeds?

From article:

"Google's strategy is to throw a handful of seeds and to see what grows," he said.

Or you could also say Google's strategy is to throw handfuls of shit and see what sticks

Does it matter if Google trumps MS?

They're a public company now; depending on the details (with which I'm not familiar - how typical, right?), MS could just buy them if the rumored browser actually exists and takes a huge chunk out of IE's share. I suspect, at least for now, things are set up so this wouldn't happen, but I don't know. And, things change.

tit for tat

Isn't it more likely that Google is developing a browser as a defensive tactice? Something like this:

ring, ring

Sergey: Hello?

Gates: Hello, Google. This is Bill Gates! We're going to release a search engine built right into IE, which is built right into Windows! Ha ha! You guys are pwned! Who's going to bother to load up Google now, when you can just click the shiny search button in our browser (plus Google no longer renders right)

Sergey: That's funny. We're going to release a browser, with our search built right in. Think people would rather use MSN or Google for search? Do you think their search choice would guide their browser choice, or vice versa? And oh yeah, it doesn't work with streaming WMP. Who knew?

Gates:...

Sergey: And what happens to your dreams of internet domination when folks switch to our browser en masse, cause oh yeah, btw, it doesn't have security issues like IE?

Gates:...well we didn't really want to do search...

Sergey: Well! We didn't really want to develop and support a browser!

All: It seems like we've come to an agreement then!

Sergey: Have I mentioned Goffice? Online word processing, search all your documents by content, 1GB of guaranteed storage...

My guess.

A browser with online storage of profile settings. Possibly with a light-weight download. I have different browsers at home, work, friends house etc. And I like having my plugins and so forth. With lazy loading, storing stuff like that online is very useful given todays bandwidths.

Another possibility?

If Google is hiring a bunch of browser programming experts, isn't it more likely that they want to build websites such as gmail to be as powerful as possible and still be compatible with as many browsers as possible? They already have an army of website programmers. Maybe hiring internet browser programmers is Google's way of enhancing their current and upcoming web based applications. I have a feeling that whatever is going on at Google, you'll still be able to access it using IE or Firefox when it comes out.

Just an idea.

Could this mean KHTML on Windows?

I'd welcome a Google browser. While it wouldn't surprise me if they wrote one from scratch, I think they would do better to port KHTML to Windows and build from there. With Apple contributing code to KHTML along with the Open Source community it's sure to have a fruitful and long life, couple that with the lack of a KHTML port for Windows and it would really fill a niche in the browser world. I hope you're listening Google!

And coming next

Google will be starting franchised public WiFi access points called...

wait for it...

GSpots

But will it display fonts correctly?

Unlike explorer which allows people to lock fonts to a small and unreadable size (of course you tick 'ignore font sizes' but it doens't ignore line heights, making it compeltely unreadble still - and even then MS has their own way to ignore that setting (just check windows update) which others have started to copy - tsk tsk )

And before utters the usual suggestion of Firefox/mozilla, no thanks - there are too many things i don't like about it - including its instance on placing its config files in "Documents and Settings"

hires

One of them, Adam Bosworth, is credited with being a driving force not only behind IE, but Microsoft's database-management program, Access.

If he's been the driving force behind IE for the last three years he is a fucking failure.

Re:the article (not like ny times will be /.'ed bu

The company also hired four people who worked on Microsoft's Web browser...

If they're trying to build their own browser, why would they want IE developers? If it were my business, I'd want guys who had developed a product that had to stand on its own merit to succeed. Building a product that is successful largely because of an illegal monopoly is less than impressive.

Re:the article (not like ny times will be /.'ed bu

Well, they were taking over marketshare like crazy (even before being bundled) and were inventing new technologies faster than the rest of the company could keep up. So they shut them down to ensure that web apps wouldn't take over the rest of their business. They certainly didn't stop developing IE because they couldn't afford it. I don't know about you, but grabbing a few guys that can eat away at the rest of Microsoft's business doesn't sound like such a bad idea to me ;)

Re:Just part of the OS...

Google also owns the domains "GOS.com" "Gporn.com" "Goffice" and "Gword"

I think it's safe to say they've got big plans.

Little do you know, the G in GNU really stands for "Google's New Unix". They also own Gimp, Gnome, GTK, and Gator. That last one was just an insidious plot to create demand for their new pop-up blocking toolbar. Smart cookies, they are...

Re:Google Everything?

It's not just you. I'm pretty much Googled-out. I also think it's a big mistake for Google to try and be all things to all people. They should focus on their search engine only. Think about how much it can still be improved. Even Google only indexes a small fraction of the pages on the WWW. About 3.3 billion which comes to no more than 10% of the publicly indexable web. Even the 3.3 billion they have indexed are not complete; some are nothing more than the URL. But I guess they have shareholders to answer to now so they feel they have to innovate in new areas.

Re:Google Everything?

Do you not understand the concept of capitalism? The goal of a company/corporation/whatever is to MAKE MONEY. They are not going to make money by making their search engine any better than it already is. 4.2 Billion webpages is more than enough for just about any topic that has any information on the net.

I, for one, welcome google to introduce some competition. I think it would be an incredibly beneficial thing to have 2 large companies that are about even in software. If google wants to start making everything, I hope they do. I hope google makes an OS. I have always been a supporter of windows on slashdot (mod me down), mostly because of the anti-microsoft FUD that gets posted here, and I believe windows XP is incredibly stable and secure for people who know how to use it. Now SP2 makes it secure (and stable, if you factor in the fact that less adware will be getting installed) for everyone. Now back on topic... If google made an OS, I would guess it would be incredibly secure, fast, unbloated (like google's main search page), and will use genius techniques for just about everything. Google won't have to base a new OS off of anything else, while windows has always been known for making things compatable with older versions (which I believe is good, given their circumstances)... but google has different circumstances, and can make software for the future.

You geeks should like the fact that google is going in to new fields. They are probably the only company that can rival microsoft.