Google Chrome, a new internet browser from the web search giant Google, was released earlier this week. This adds a yet another service/software from their ever-increasing stable. What started as a small University Project back in 1996, has now grown into a multi-billion dollar company, which encompasses online services including Search, E-Mail, Online Office Suite, Web Albums, Video Sharing, Blogging Platform and what not else. Perhaps the move to introduce a browser to the market must have been anticipated by many. By introducing services after services, Google has become the ubiquitous identity povider for us, for having a single Google Account grants access to a multitude of services encompasing the whole range of our online activities. A browser was on the minds of Google folks for sure.

How is it?

The initial reactions for Chrome have largely been positive. It has some intuitive features not found in mainstream browsers, and is designed to be rock stable. In fact, Chrome’s every tab runs in its separate process, so that the user can safely turn off the one which crashed, while keeping the rest of them intact. A typically useful feature there, considering how notorious some media-heavy websites can be.

Chrome, by its design is minimalistic. There is no Title Bar, no Menu Bar, and no additional toolbars(!), which results in a very clean interface and a lot of screen real estate being given to the web page. Clearly, IE needs to learn something from it! There is no concept of a ‘Home Page’ — upon opening the browser you are presented with thumbnails of nine most visited websites, along with the Bookmarks Bar, and an option to search your history (view screenshot).

The Address Bar, which is known as Omnibox in Chrome, is also very intuitive in its design. You can either type the address of the website you want to visit, or you can enter some keywords, which will initiate a Google Search. Also, as you type, it will show you the relevant links from your history, and also from the World Wide Web (view screenshot).

A nice animation plays when you initiate a download from a website, the progress of which is displayed at the bottom of the tab. Since every tab has its own process, you can view, via Chrome’s own Task Manager, which one is consuming how much amount of memory, or bandwidth. This way, you can safely turn off the offenders (read: tabs which are bandwidth or memory hogs).

Some (early) limitations

Being an early release (it is version 0.2), and some websites, like the popular Social Network Facebook, do not run as expected in Chrome. Also, it does not handle RSS Feed links very well, showing you the XML code instead. Clearly, there is a lot of work to be done. Somebody even discovered a Security Flaw in the browser, hours after it was launched!

However, these issues are likely to be sorted out soon, for Chrome is an Open Source browser, much like FireFox. Also, a multitude of plugins are going to be developed by developers all around the world, which will make such nuisances a thing of the past.

Google (and) Chrome

Although I’m not surprised the least, but Chrome loads Google services, like GMail and Google Reader blazingly fast. In fact, ever since I have got my hands on it, I have not used FireFox to check my email and read my feeds. And it comes bundled with Google Gears too!

On a side note

With the launch of Google’s Browser, there have been skeptisms from a variety of people — how much information is Google allowed to keep? With its own browser, Google might keep track of our browsing histories, and might sell this information to advertisers. Anil Dash of SixApart, says in his blog post -

connecting PageRank to economic systems such as AdWords and AdSense corrupted the meaning and value of links by turning them into an economic exchange.

Now that Google can know the browsing activities of millions of users, it might try to use it for its own benefit. What is your take on this?

Within a day of its launch, Chrome has already captured 1% of market share! I don’t know if this trend will continue, but if it does, it might spell doom for IE, FF and Safari. I’m amazed by its slew of new features, still I love my FireFox better 

We all know what an Operating System is :

A Master Program that controls a computer’s basic functions and allows other programs to access the computer’s resources such as disk drive, printer, keyboard, and screen. (Source)

Or something similar. Well, for most of the folks, Windows is that Master Program. Some of us might even use a Mac, or a Linux (like me!). Also, when it comes to surfing the internet, most of us use Firefox (or Internet Explorer, or Opera, or Safari). Now why do I call Firefox a web OS? 

What does one do on an OS?Frankly speaking, common man does not care about how an Operating System accesses the system, runs processes, display windows, and all that techy stuff. What a user really interested in is getting things done. He wants to compose a letter and print it out, he wants to watch movies and listen to music, he wants to be abreast with the latest news and catch up with a few friends… You get the idea. These are the common tasks an average user performs. And the good news is — with the latest version of Firefox and a good selection of plugins, he can do all that.. within the browser. Welcome to Bliss!

Firefox is not just a browser, it is an Environment

With Firefox, a user is not just restricted to browsing the web only. With a slew of web applications doing rounds, the web has become a hell lot different. The best part is that, Firefox supports Addons (or extensions, or plugins, whatever you may call it), which can increase its functionality manifold. Over time, when people get used to their personal selection of extensions they use within Firefox, they start loving their setup, and find out that they spend most of the time with it! Its a software so organic — it actually stimulates the creative juices within a person. Just like some games, this web browser can be addictive too!

Firefox is packaged for the user

A single look at the Firefox Website and you will be mesmerized! As if in a celebration. The website is aesthetically designed and is one of the most beautiful on the internet. The site single-handedly convinces the visitor to click on the green download button.

The website, along with providing the download link and the related technical stuff, also lists all its innovative features in an innovative way. Not for a single moment a user feels that he is visiting the website of a software product. After all, they use of graphical characters to illustrate their web pages. Would you find such design in any other, say Microsoft website? Talk of Innovation!

All due to Web 2.0

With the advent of the next generation of web, where the end user creates content — be it on Blogs, Forums, Communities, and even platforms like Twitter — his participation is critical. Hence, there is a need to develop a user interface which is easy to use, can be tweaked and is extendable. Firefox meets all these requirements. Firefox is pretty, but is also the best Standards Compliant Browser around. Web developers and designers can be absolutely sure that their applications will run in the exact fashion as they have programmed them. When you make your PNG images transparent, they remain that way (in IE6, for example, transparent PNGs don’t show up correctly). The technologies used to develop Web 2.0 applications run best in Firefox.

Not just Browsing

As I said earlier, Firefox is not just about browsing web pages. It takes your internet experience to a very new level. Want to research on a topic? Try Zotero — An addon to Firefox that makes note taking, referencing and extracting information from well-known websites very easy. Want to write to your blog? Try ScribeFire, an addon that will make posting rich text and media to your blog very easy. Want to keep track of Twitter? Download TwitterFox — an addon that will check your Twitter account and alert you everytime a friend updates. Don’t like how your favorite websites look? Fire up the Stylish extension and define custom styles for websites like Gmail. Read a lot of blogs? Sage is a feed reader that easily integrates into Firefox.

Find it cool? Well.. read on!

Hey! What about MS Word?

When I propose to use Firefox as a Web OS, you should be able to do all things you do in an OS, right? What about writing a letter?

Help is not far away dude.. Google to the rescue!

Google has come up with Google Docs, an Online Office Suite comprising of a Word Processor, a Spreadsheet Program and a Presentation Application. Zoho and ThinkFree are some of the healthy alternatives, too. The concept of Online Office is going catching up very fast, and why not? Online Office has some unfair advantages. Since these are online services, you can access them anywhere around the world. All you need to remember is your login information. You can share your documents with others, and collaborate on a document. A perfect tool for a team exercise!

Other than Office Applications, you can read your favorite RSS Feeds on Google Reader, keep track of appointments and engegements using Google Calendar, and even chat with your friends using the built-in chat feature in GMail or the web-based chat in Meebo.

Lemme finish this up!

We’ve seen how some of the simplest tasks we perform on a PC can be done via a browser. We’ve seen how Firefox makes our life easier with all its addons. We’ve seen how we can literally live off the browser, without the need to fire up any other application on the PC. Hence my claim — Firefox is a Web OS. OS in this case might not necessarily mean the Operating System, it can mean Oasis — a shelter serving as a place of safety. Inside the browser, one can work with a great amount of productivity. One need not care about platforms at all — Firefox is available for Windows, Mac and Linux, and also as a portable edition. One need not care about data loss at all — since one is interacting with the web, most of the data is stored on secure servers. One need not care about getting disconnected (unless your internet connection gives away!). If only we had an option of discarding an operating system. If only we could boot up from Firefox!

Guys.. Today is the Mozilla Firefox 3 Download Day. For Indians, the downloads start at 10:30 PM Indian Standard Time. So get ready. Brace yourselves. And hit the download button!
The Mozilla Corporation aims to create a Guinness World Record for the Maximum Number of Software Downloads in a 24 hour period. Help the company set the world record! After all, Firefox is your favorite browser, isn’t it? Move to www.spreadfirefox.com to download your copy.

Sometimes, a single idea remains at the back of your mind, only to be brought up later when someone else vouches for it. The same happened to me, lately. I am a subscriber of Digit (A technology magazine based in India), who have a habit of providing latest flavours of Linux in their monthly installments of CDs and DVDs. It had always remained in the back of my mind that one day, I would certainly install one of these “Free, Open Source and Robust” operating systems. Sounded too good to be true.

Finally, the last resort came when I chanced upon a blog, TheLinuxConvert, which had the ramblings of a guy who had successfully converted to Linux. Hmmm.…. That long gone idea of conversion came back, and I fired up the March 2008 DVD of Digit and started installing Fedora Core 8.

For the Uninitiated: Just like Windows, Linux is also and Operating System. But there is a main difference. Linux is open source, meaning, anybody can access the source code of Linux and make changes. The person can later submit the changes to the parent foundation and with his luck, the changes can be reflected in the next version.

Also, Linux is freely available. You can download the installer from the web, burn a CD or a DVD, and start the installation. No payment necessary.

Linux comes in many flavours, too! Like Fedora, we have the Mandriva, Linspire, Ubuntu, OpenSuSe and many other Linux Distributions. Its an overwhelming variety to choose!

Ah.. Let me come back to my experience. Fedora installed at my PC alright. I shifted the contents of my Drive F (where I was to install Linux) into Drive E, and booted from the Digit DVD. I wanted to keep my Windows XP installation intact, and intended a dual boot system. So, Fedora installed a bootloader that would help me select an OS at the time of starting up my PC. Fedora also somes with a plethora of software (contained in numerous packages), all for free!

The installation took about 10–15 minutes, and about 3GB of my hard-drive space to complete. Everything fell in order and within minutes, I was with my brand new OS. However, there was a major problem.

I have a cable internet connection at home, and use a program called Cyberoam Client to log in to my account. It didn’t come with the default installation of Fedora (it was obvious..). So I got back to Windows, and did a google search for a linux version. I got it alright, but was stuck up on how to install it (it was a command line version, you know). The internet did not help, either. So, that saw me juggling between Linux and Windows trying to find a solution — for three days. Nothing helped. Then I threw up.

I uninstalled Fedora Core 8. Welcome, Windows XP…

For a layman like me, Linux was intimidating. I wasn’t able to solve even the simplest of problems. I need some linux lessons, and fast, because I am getting fed up Windows lately. Anybody, who can help me out, please do so.