Google Chrome: yet another reinvention of the wheel?

Google has finally released its new strategic weapon: Google Chrome, a Web browser developed on the Webkit project.

Let's take a look at some key features of Chrome:

1. Open Source?
I'm still a little confused. I was able to find a project on Google code called Chromium and saw some information that claimed it's based on Webkit open source project, but where exactly can I download the entire source code?

2. Enhanced JavaScript Virtual Machine
Yep, Chrome does really feel faster when I browse through lots of Web pages, and it's startup speed is really better than Flock.

3. Smart Address toolbar
When you type a URL in the address bar, it will quickly show the rest of the address. Firefox and IE already have this feature, but Chrome seems smarter in terms of its predictive abilities.

4. Simple design
Without any complex toolbar and configuration, Chrome is kept as simple as it should be.

5. Snap Show
When you start Google Chrome, you will see snap picture of nine Web sites you recently visited.

In the first 24 hours after the Google browser was released, it gained 1 percent share of the Internet browser market. According to Net Applications last month, the browser market share is divided between IE (72.2 percent), Firefox (19.2 percent) and Safari (6.4 percent). One percent in 24 hours makes Google Chrome a marvel of an Internet browser.

But, if you take a look at the Web browser market, there are already lots of browsers available such as Konqueror, Netscape, Opera, IE, Firefox and Lynx--and maybe more that we don't know about. This reminds me of the J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) application server war eight years ago. Back then, there were more than 30 companies that wrote their own J2EE application server--not only for commercial server, but also as open source alternatives.

Over time, however, only three to four players survived the J2EE war, which included IBM, Oracle (BEA) and Red Hat(JBoss). Too many company invested lots of resources including time, money and people to partake in this war, and it was just a waste of money being spent on the same thing. Maybe it helped in some way to drive the J2EE technology forward, but it also resulted in lots of developers wasting their time working on different products.

moving forward, I hope Google Chrome will not simply re-invent the wheel, but make a better browser that people are willing to use.

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Peter Cheng

Peter Cheng is a community strategist and open source evangelist, who is based in Beijing, China. In 2003, he initiated the Open Source University program to gather industry experts and help spread open source technology and culture to over 100 universities. In 2007, he organized the Open Source Camp in five Chinese cities, with the aim to enable the open source community to share and exchange ideas and to promote the technology in China. Peter currently runs TargetSource Tech, a company he founded to provide consulting services on enterprise open source software.