Google-branded Firefox? 355
arpy writes "An article on Mozillanews.org is reporting on Google's registration of the domain GBrowser.com (nothing to look at there yet). The article provides a summary of rumours that Google will release a branded version of Mozilla Firefox (along with some interesting speculation)."
The next logical step (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, I sorta saw it coming. Google is investing heavily in JavaScript-powered desktop-like web apps like Gmail and Blogger. Google could then use their expertise to build Mozilla apps. It'll be interesting to see whether this happens or not.
Hmmm.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Death to MS Explorer!
Not just a browser (Score:5, Interesting)
Only be a good think (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm still strugling to think why they would want to do this, perhaps that have some cool XUL applications in the offering.
And? (Score:5, Interesting)
One of those domains was "(companyname)lovesjesus".
I wish I were kidding.
Anyway, it only makes sense for Google to do the same.
I will, however say that I would gladly give up the left nuts of all those within 100 miles of me for a version of FireFox that had what this Google Fangirl thinks would be the Alpha and Omega of browsers.
Not a good thing (Score:5, Interesting)
Whats more, there are one or two of us out here that don't want a myriad of features specifically oriented to one corporation. I'd be more than happy with Google producing a line of Google plugins and extensions, but coding them into the browser itself? That sort of thing leads to code forks... and thats not a good thing for the Firefox project on the whole.
Re:Alright, (Score:5, Interesting)
When the google browser is no longer open and has a 90% market share.
From our perspective, this is a little silly, and more than a little opportunistic on google's part.
But in the big picture, this will do a lot to put a brand name on an Explorer killer. And google seems to be pretty good at making usable internet products, so I'm giving all of this a tentative thumbs-up. Anything that gets the lusers to not think of the blue e as "the internet" is good by me.
Not that anyone ever cares to ask me, mind you.
GoogleOS? (Score:2, Interesting)
Integration's great, but at which point will it just become a bloated, lock-in business model??
Re:Not just a browser (Score:4, Interesting)
Although not stated, I believe the parent poster meant "Why bother with os and native apps, when you can access this from anywhere on any computer". Essentially taking the brain out of the box, and putting it availlabe from everywhere on the network.
Not that I think that's going to happen, but a lot of hosted apps are coming to fruition every day. E-mail was one that exploded quickly, I don't believe that word processing and spreadsheet are that far behind.
Why do things online? Easier to upgrade, install the upgrade on the server and you are done.
But what if Google *buys* Mozilla? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Expressly denied by Google CEO (Score:5, Interesting)
Some speculation: (Score:4, Interesting)
A lot of people thought advertising on the Internet was dead, but AdSense revived it.
A lot of mainstream media thought tracking our usage was an invasion of our privacy -- but Google has only strengthened its capabilities and products using our data in a productive manner.
When we speculate on Google's pending product releases, we seem to always forget to take into account that there will be something totally new attached to it --- making the product near-revolutionary.
Gmail has a HUGE usability error... (Score:5, Interesting)
Why can't I open my different messages in new tabs? Why can't I view a message, and then open my "inbox" in a separate tab?
As it stands now, I have to manually open a new window and then navigate to GMail. I can't believe Gmail has the same problem hotmail does.
Re:Not just a browser (Score:5, Interesting)
Why are Google/Moz being so quiet on this? (Score:2, Interesting)
Because Google is asking something momentous of the Mozilla Organization.
Something that might cause Mozilla to lose all of the good karma and favor they have built up with the Open Source community.
What would this be?
A license shift, or something akin to it.
Think of this:
1)It's patently obvious that Google wants to work with Mozilla(or at least it is to me.)
2)However, the Mozilla applications are trilicensed(GPL/LGPL/MPL).
3)And under those licences, Google would have to release any changes they make to the Mozilla codebase to their own licence.
4)Google, in the past, has demonstrated a notable lack of willingness to open up their own applications and non-search engine APIs to developers.
So what can we conclude from this? Google wants to build off Firefox, in an environment where they do not have to recontribute their changes back to the shared codebase. From that, we can gather that possibly Google has extended an offer to Mozilla:
We'll give you whackloads of money-enough to keep you afloat for years-if you either change to a BSD-type licence or give us a snapshot of the Mozilla codetree that we can use for closed-source application building.
This would be very tempting to Mozilla-they wouldn't need to worry about money so much, and could concentrate on browser building. However, it would definitely lose them brownie points amongst the Open Source community-and can they afford that? And if they turn Google down, will Google favor MS and Opera over them? Drop compatibility between Firefox and GMail?
Think about this-it makes an awful lot of sense.
New browser paradigm? (Score:4, Interesting)
Next step: the world (Score:3, Interesting)
An interesting sidenote... (Score:5, Interesting)
In my ("How Microsoft Lost the API War") essay, I quoted a Microsoft guy (and Longhorn Avalon team member) named Joe Beda. I quoted him saying "Microsoft is making a big bet on the rich client." And now he works at Google with Adam Bosworth. I'm sure what they're doing is a new browser. It's the IE (Internet Explorer) team reconstructed inside Google.
Re:The next logical step (Score:3, Interesting)
I know this may sound lame for 2004, but I wish Google would make a nice portal page like my.yahoo.com and let logged in users modify their preferences. Maybe they already have, but I can't find it on their page. I think that'd be more useful than yet another Mozilla browser.
Re:Not just a browser (Score:3, Interesting)
You are perceiving Google to be the ultimate solution to everything, a viable "endlösung" to all of the world's problems ( Yes, I spelled it right this time! ) including war, famine and Celine Dion. Google might be a good company that seems to know where to put it's efforts, as both Google itself and Gmail are wonderfully clean and fast, I highly doubt they would risk themselves in the OS market. the Gbrowser itself already seems a bit far-fetched, but a rebranded Firefox with standard Google utils ( Think of Google Toolbar for Firefox, Gmail notifier in Firefox, ?logger utililities within reach ) seems a nice thought.
But a Google OS would be downright silly. They'd be taking a bite of the pie too large for them to swallow. Doing so would immediately draw a lot of fire from Microsoft who would dislike having to see google chew away at more of their precious monopolies. So far Google spanked them in search engines, is spanking them at free email services yet MS is clever and rich enough to stop them from creating/rebranding an OS.
Re:Not just a browser (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure, Microsoft made IE free, likely in hopes of killing Netscape. But could Microsoft make it's OS free? Not in this lifetime... Windows is where MS's money comes from.
Re:Not just a browser (Score:3, Interesting)
The browser on the other hand they could easily do because firefox already works under windows (with the added benefit of the other platforms), and they'd hardly have to do much work. They could easily get a big chunk of people to adopt it in the wake of all the viruses/spyware/etc.
It would make perfect sense and it would kill IE (Score:5, Interesting)
It would make IE unused and unwanted by the masses and it would run on any and every platform that Google runs on.
The fact that Google has to time this right should be obvious: If it becomes public knowledge too soon, Microsoft will do it's usual embrace and extend routine to make IE the most modern, full featured browser out there.
But I think Google is absolutely right to do this. Microsoft has already acknowledged Google as a competitor, especially in search services with MSN, and to Microsoft nothing is holy in chasing and killing a competitor. This means that it would not be beneath MS to do it's utmost in both FUD and technical underhandedness to stop Google working on PCs with Windows.
Google's best chance is to attack by moving forward with a platform that integrates many popular web features in order to get the public to move over to Mozilla. Once and if their marketshare is high enough it will prove very very difficult for MS to unseat them, especially if they don't have the majority borwser anymore. This is not 1995 and Microsoft couldn't threaten PC manufacturers with withholding Windows OEM.
Only one problem... (Score:3, Interesting)
Even their latest offering, the desktop search says they might include FireFox support in the future, but only if enough people request it.
I would think that if they are in fact going to release a rebranded FireFox, they would be making sure that most of their services work with it.
It sounds like a bunch of wishful thinking to me.
Re:Not just a browser (Score:2, Interesting)
Who cares what the underlying OS is? It could be anything, although Linux would be a best bet, methinks. The point is that the whole experience would be web-based and could be accomplished on any machine with a network connection.
But forget the CD - just put the whole shebang on a bootable USB memory stick keychain. Now you take it with you everywhere.
THAT would be incredibly handy. (It would also be a killer wireless PDA app.)
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History Repeats Itself... (Score:2, Interesting)