Google shines Chrome browser, shrugs off beta tag

Chrome_screenshotIs this the shortest beta ever for a Google product? The company debuted their Chrome browser roughly 100 days ago and the beta tag is officially gone. Considering the Gmail logo still has the word beta in it, this might be a record.

There’s no doubt that Chrome offers a utilitarian, minimalistic view of the web, which can be a good thing, but there are still some barriers to fast, widespread adoption:

  • No version for non-Windows platforms, although these are in the works. While PCs running Windows make up the lions share of the computer market, my gut says that Mac and Linux folks are more likely to adopt a non-native browser than Windows users. I don’t mean the tech-saavy Windows users here, I mean Joe the Plumber… OK, bad example. I mean my dad and his friends.
  • No extensions yet, which is one of the main reasons folks turn to Firefox. Again, this is in the works and recently, the Google folks introduced an extension framework for Chrome.
  • The new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine in the upcoming Firefox 3.1 takes away some of the advantage Chrome has with it’s speedy V8 engine. Both are lickety-split, but what was once a clear competitive advantage is about to see feature parity per early test results.
  • Name recognition. Yup, Google as a brand is among the tops in the world, but mostly as a search engine to mainstream consumers. The Mozilla team has worked hard over the past few years to spread the word and get the Firefox brand in front of as many eyes as possible. This will surely change over time, but for now, I think more people know what Firefox is than what Chrome is.

At the moment, the general consensus is that Chrome effectively has around 1% of the browser market. It’s sure to grow, but not at the pace that Opera or Firefox have in the past. My guess: Google will consider it a win if they see 10% market share in the next twelve months. Of course, that’s subject to change if we see Google work some deals with OEMs and get Chrome on the PC as the default browser. It would be even better if they get it on some non-Android hardware as well. Also bound to help: the Chrome browser recently got a Bookmark manager.

At the moment, I generally use Chrome on my PCs (it works great on my netbook) but Firefox on my Mac. Who’s made the switch to Chrome full-time and why?

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