Keir Thomas, author of several books on Ubuntu, including the Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference, declares that Firefox has lost its way. He says that the fox is slow and Slashdot users are complaining about it heavily.
Thomas compares Firefox to Google Chrome and suggests that 2 or 3 years down the wire that Chrome may be king. According to Wikipedia, as of February 2009, Chrome had a 1.15% share of the web browser market.
Read Keir Thomas’ Firefox article here.
Keep in mind:
- As of this post, Chrome is available only for XP SP2 and Vista. You can’t take over the world if you don’t run on Linux. However, Google has plans. If you don’t want to wait for the Linux version, see Install Google Chrome on Linux using Wine.
- Privacy concerns swirl around Google. According to Google, one reason they built Chrome was to “provide improved protection from rogue sites.” Who protects you from Google? You can turn off all of Google’s phone-home features except one, according to Wikipedia (see the Usage Tracking topic).
- Google built Chrome to make money. They know that the next OS is the browser. If they own the browser, they don’t need to wait for you to use Google Search, Maps, or Gmail to see what you’re up to. You’ll already be surrounded by their 4 walls (and they won’t be padded for your protection). Update: After what Google did to Safari, can you trust them with their own browser? Read about Google’s privacy fine.
Additional Reading
For an overview of browser security, read Tom Olzak’s Free Browser Security Handbook.
See What are the Security Implications for Google Chrome by Chad Perrin.
Read another ITauditSecurity post about Google: 15 Must-See Sights in Google Earth, which also discusses Google Chrome and security implications.
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