Thursday, August 16, 2007

A Connection: Part II Browsers

After reading a recent article at TechCrunch by Michael Arrington, I was bit perplexed by what he was saying. Google is thinking about purchasing and rereleasing a browser that they could call their own.

REALLY?

Now why would Google want to do that? And just how many browsers do they think users need or even want?

These were just a few of the questions I asked myself when I read the article so I decided to research a little and find out some of the facts that revolve around web browsers.

In my mind, there are several browsers that deserve note in every article about web browsers.

-Internet Explorer, Microsoft's browser that comes preloaded on every Windows machine and does the trick but is susceptible to security flaws for the sole reason of being a Microsoft product.

-Mozilla Firefox 2.0: an open-source project that is becoming the largest contendor for Internet Explorer. With a huge selection of add-ons and a strong support base, this is a great browser.

-Safari: Apple's attempt at a strong web browser that has recently switched to be used over Mac and Windows operating systems.

-Opera: An open source project that is developing a name for being the underdog against the three browsers previously listed. It's nice and simple and does the trick.

In recent search on Download.com, I found 286 entries for browsers. Granted, browsers can be anything from web browsers to media browsers to P2P (person-to-person) share browsers and the list goes on and on. After just checking the first 20 entries, I was astounded to find that only two of listed browsers are what could be considered to be mainstream browsers, Mozilla Firefox and Opera.

Now why would Google think we need to see a browser from them? I'll tell you why: because Firefox has adapted an all inclusive browser that I am using currently called Flock. and it's the next big thing for web browsing!

Flock is a social networking browser that incorporates many of the major blogging, picture and video sites into the browser itself and allows you to update anything from Flickr to Blogger and Wordpress to PhotoBucket from any page on the Web.

I've blogged Flock before. You can find the entry here.

I think Google is trying to find a way to cash in on this market as well by implementing a browser that will allow you to use all of their services like Blogger, orkut, YouTube, Google Maps, Google Reader, Google Talk and so on.

This makes complete sense and it would be another way for Google to advertise for a lot of companies in a short amount of time! Is this good? I think so. Will we see it soon? Maybe. Will I switch over to G-Browser? If the product is quality, I'll try anything! Does Flock still rock? OH YEAH!

So let me know what you think! Don't forget to leave some comments, link up, subscribe if you like what I have to say and just let me know!

Have a great day!

Blogged with Flock

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