Scott Anthony recently blogged about Google’s new Chrome browser, concluding that the offering has potential as a disruptive threat to Microsoft. I agree, but not because the browser itself is particularly remarkable; specifically, I see Chrome as a small part of a larger, Google-backed movement toward more Internet-based computing as opposed to Microsoft’s current desktop applications. I think that Chrome itself is a sustaining move in the browser space, but that it may help foster more disruptive change.
I’ve been using Chrome since its debut, and there’s no doubt that it’s clever. The frame the browser creates around the sites it displays (known to developers as its “chrome” – get it?) is impressively small: there’s no menu bar, tabs are all the way at the top, and the status bar at the bottom only pops up when it needs to, leaving extra space to view websites the rest of the time. Useful features and shortcuts abound, like the versatile, search-capable address bar known as the “omnibar”.
Chrome is also technically innovative: it’s speedy, of course, and there are many innovations under the hood. One of the cleverest enhancements is the way tabs work. Each tab is completely separated from all the others, so when an especially complex (or unfortunately buggy) website causes problems and a tab crashes, everything else keeps humming along smoothly.
Finally, it’s… well… cute. Its features are introduced in a comic. Chrome reminds you that browsing in its unique incognito mode (in which no history is kept and no cookies are saved) won’t protect you from “secret agents” or “people standing behind you.” When a tab crashes the error message is “Aw, Snap!” Typing "about:internets" into the address bar will take you to a Ted Stevens joke.
These innovations allow Chrome to do the things other browsers do (they all get at the same Internet) and to do them incrementally better. Through that lens, I’m not sure how successful Chrome will be; remember, as Scott mentions, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer maintains a 72.2% market share despite the existence of superior alternatives. All major web browsers out there are equally free, and many are also open source.
Viewed as part of a larger strategy, however, Chrome could be a small part of a truly disruptive change in computing. Google has been pushing hard in recent years to expand the range of jobs consumers are able to do online in the cloud, from word processing to working with spreadsheets to creating presentations, and Chrome is a speedier, more stable platform for those sorts of applications than other browsers. Furthermore, because Chrome is open source, Google is making it easy for other developers to adapt its features.
Chrome may not be disruptive to other browsers, but it will help enable the adoption of Internet-based computing which, as it provides enhanced portability at a low (or no) price in exchange for fewer features, fits the disruptive mold nicely.
On its own, Chrome is nothing earth-shattering, breathless pundits prophesying the gruesome demise of Microsoft notwithstanding. On the other hand, Chrome’s features do make Internet applications marginally easier to use and more reliable, and Google is working diligently to continue that trend. Relying entirely on the Internet to get our computing jobs done may seem difficult to imagine now, but viewed as part of a larger movement Chrome is certainly a small step toward a much "cloudier” future.