Google Chrome Becomes Number Three Browser

"I hardly think the only explanation for Google going with WebKit was laziness."

They should have used Mozilla. You don't pay tens of millions per year to support an organization, and then use your competitor's technology in your own. Mozilla and Google don't compete and thus will never have any technological conflict of interest.

A basic lesson of business is never, ever, do anything that could benefit someone you're attempting to rival. The Apple/Google relationship is going to get vastly more hostile, especially when Android proliferates (and it will). This will leave Google in an awkward situation since they'll need to save-face if they choose an alternative platform. Or else they will be supporting their competitor with a de facto endorsement. The Apple marketing department also features some very bright talent with passive-aggressive style. The last thing Google needs are Apple commercials saying, "Android isn't bad, because it uses all our stuff!" Not a good corner to occupy.

I suspect the WebKit decision was an arbitrary deal struck by Jobs/Schmidt and has nothing to do with the technology... Standards support doesn't mean anything in the board room -- because they think in terms of Critical Mass. That's how MS operates to some degree. The standard doesn't matter if you own the market, because alas, you get to set the standard by default.

I hardly think the only explanation for Google going with WebKit was laziness. WebKit is arguably the one that is most aggressively pursuing compliance with HTML5 and CSS3 and that's where Google (and Apple) believe the future is. A Flash-free future.

And, quite tellingly and completely unsurpisingly, Thurrott completely fails to mention that WebKit's adoption rate has skyrocketed during this interval, a number you arrive at by adding Safari's market share to Chrome's.

But Thurrott has no interest in seeing other-than-Microsoft technologies (especially Apple-related ones) succeed, as he has demonstrated time and time again.

I like the cut of your jib Christopher...

Only B00ble controls the internets now...

@chuck
"Everyone but Paul sees this, since he can't pass a chance to write a negative story about Apple."

"The only reason Chrome even exists is that Google correctly fears that Microsoft will try to sabotage Google apps through some trickery in IE."

And you can't pass up an opportunity to write something negative about Microsoft. The real reason Google created a browser is to have a default homepage/search engine set to Google and generate advertising revenue.

"Precisely the point. IE is not holding up well under competition"

Actually I don't think that has anything to do with it it whatsoever -- if commercials on TV dictated browser choice, that would be end-user direct marketing and the stats would matter.

The third party browsers are giving kickbacks to the hardware makers for default inclusion.

Mac using Safari and Windows using IE for retail copies is the only thing that makes sense from the perspective of, "Marketers aren't messing with this relationship." Windows was *better* (philosophically) back in the days when Microsoft could dictate that all installs be fresh with only optionally purchased pre-loads (Office, Word Perfect, etc). That's also why Macs are nice out of the box (since they control the A to Z).

I'm sure Sony went to Microsoft and said, "Google is going to give us 15% of all search revenue, care to beat it? No? You lose!"

MacOS also went from a dismal percentage to a healthy share of the total US computing population. If Google wanted to build a desktop OS they have more than enough resources. They'd just rather feed off everyone else's platform. That company will try to monetize just about anything it can with the least effort (middleman syndrome). I mean heck, they're Google and still used WebKit because they were too lazy to build an engine... On top of that they are one of Mozilla's principle financial backers (which made their choice even odder).

Realistically -- every browser works just fine on a new machine. I don't use web-apps for the reason I mentioned above. The concept of the "cloud" is being so misused these days it is frightening... Probably because all the people talking it up are MBAs with focuses in marketing. The cloud sounds just as cool as the dot com years did to their precursors. I don't know how many meetings I've been in where I told marketing they just spewed cool sounding nonsense that was otherwise meaningless to everyone except their peers.