Thursday, March 10, 2011

Browser Wars are Getting Hot

There is likely going to be a shakeup in the next couple months with respect to which web browser you use and prefer. You may have missed it, but Google just came out with Chrome 10. Chrome is my browser of choice, and I have to confess, the difference between Chrome 10 and 9 is lost on me. Chrome has always been fast.

The news though is in the browser dogs. Firefox is coming out with a new browser that, well maybe it doesn't surpass Chrome, but it will likely be respectable enough that you would need a special device to measure the difference in milliseconds. But in even bigger news Microsoft is coming out with IE 9 and the rumor is that it is blowing the pants off of Chrome 10.

The funny thing is that this war has a lot less meaning than it did 4 or 5 years ago. Because of all of those lawsuits against Microsoft over the past 15 years, the net result has been that your browser can't really lock you in to any particular search engine over any other. I don't necessarily want to call it neutral or independent, but IE will come with Bing as the default, Chrome comes with Google, and FFox comes with Google. 10 years ago it was difficult to change that default search engine, but today, that is not a problem.

So these companies are fighting this war, and I have to confess, I don't really understand why. The issue is the ad revenue from using Bing or Google. But with it so easy to switch, why does Microsoft care if people use IE versus any other browser? Or why does Google care if people use IE? The default search engine lock-in is over. Unless they are counting on some .4% of the population who can't figure out how to change the default provider, I just don't see the benefit. My opinion is that a lot of money can be spent in this arms race by all sides, but nobody will gain any distinct or sustainable advantage.

So go ahead, use any browser you want. If any company creates an innovation in this space, you only have to wait about 20 seconds before every other browser has that same feature.

No comments:

Post a Comment