It’s my turn, as the 86 388th blogger, to write about Google Chrome. There are plenty of articles on the web about whether Google Chrome is better, faster, should be released for Linux and Mac, etc. Something I think have gone unnoticed, is that this most likely will mean that Firefox will die.
Firefox won’t disappear tomorrow, but with time the fox will disappear.
Why will the fox die out?
Mozilla, the developer of Firefox, have developed their own rendering system: Gecko. Google Chrome however uses WebKit for its rendering.
Wait, wait, wait - rendering system?
A browser can be divided into two parts. What you see around and on top and the main area - where the web page is. Around the web page you find stuff such as: Addons, Tabs, etc. In the main area the rendering occurs. Because of this, web pages do not look the same in different browsers. The goal is that of course that the web page is rendered in the same way in all browsers, which is a web developers wet dream. A web page is written in codes, such as a headline: <h1> Wait, wait, wait - rendering system?</ H1>. The different browsers to disagree on what this <h1> code and how it should appear / rendered on your screen.
Ok, keep on
So Google Chrome uses another open source renderings system: WebKit. Gecko (Firefox’s rendering system) can compete with WebKit today. But WebKit will evolve to become a standard of the Web that Gecko won’t be able to measure up against. To find out why, we’ll have to look at who’s behind WebKit.
The fact that Google is supporting the WebKit development can be enough to kill Firefox, but little Mozilla (the developer of the Gecko) must not only compete against big Google. The biggest contributor to WebKit is Apple, which uses WebKit for the Saferi browser on their Macs, PCs and iPhones, and if if that wasn’t enough, Nokia also supports WebKit.
What do you think? Does Mozilla stand a chance against Google, Apple and Nokia?
September 3rd, 2008 | Other | Read comments (14) | Write comment
