The genius behind Google’s web browser

There is a big article about Lars Bak*, the Danish programmer behind the 'V8 Javascript engine' in the Google Chrome browser, in Financial Times today. Yesterday, the Herald Tribune ran a story about the current browser war.

With more and more applications running on the web, the browser will become more and more important. Sometimes it can be a bottleneck. (Wait for a war on 'startpages' anytime soon).

Here is my take on the browser situation:

GOOGLE CHROME
If your primary use of the browser is Gmail, Google Apps, watching videos on YouTube and prefer search results direct from the address bar, Google Chrome is the way to go. All of the applications and serviced mentioned is run by Google anyway, so there is really no alternative for 'Google Optimization' on your client. Also, it is lightning fast and very secure. In the future, they will have plug-ins and add-ons as you know from the Firefox environment.

INTERNET EXPLORER
Microsoft has finally released a new web browser. They seem to have been quite lazy about it, enjoying a massive amount of 'factory installations' on the market and the biggest market share, however dropping fast. If you believe in Windows Live, is an incarnated user of the Microsoft Office suite and have a PC running Vista, the new, improved IE might be the right choice for you. The security matters seem to have been solved with the newest release and it runs pretty smooth.

SAFARI
So many Mac users out there and the Apple Movement is a mega-cult following that reminds me of Scientology and other quasi-religious sects. However, there is no denying the popularity of the products (I am an avid iTunes fan myself), and when you own a Mac, the browser is Safari. A killer app for Safari would be an exclusive iTunes browser version, but that would also be very evil to non-Mac users.

FIREFOX
This is the open source browser favoured by many, when they dumped their Internet Explorer and the original 'anti-Microsoft' web reader. It is still a pretty good browser and there are so many cool applications and plug-ins made especially for this browser that makes it a good choice for many. However, Google Chrome, will probably overtake this browser as soon as they open up for third-party development. As soon as Google Chrome 2 goes out of beta, I think this will be the choice of many hiherto Firefox users.

OPERA
If you primarily use the web from a mobile phone, Opera, could be an interesting choice. Opera have been frontrunners of the 'mini-browser'. But the mobile web seems to be an iPhone vs. Google Phone affair in the future, so I am not sure about the position of Opera in the coming years. Microsoft should buy it just for the cool brand effect.

Conclusively, I predict that the future belongs to 'white label' browsers: costumized browsers running on powerful engines developed and delivered by Apple, Google and Microsoft. Or e-commerce vendors such as eBay or Amazon Web Services. Another vision could be a next-gen Mozilla or other open source community-based project somehow taking advantage of 'cloud computing' and 'the sematic web'. The next couple of years, however, we will see increases in Google Chrome and Apple Safari use, and several users leaving IE and FF.

I am currently running FF 3.0.7. on weekdays and Google Chrome 1.0.1 in the weekends (watching more YouTube on Sundays) on a ThinkPad Vista machine. I am saving up for the new Sony Vaio P model that has (a big and slow) Vista on it, but also a Linux quick-start install for web only use.

*In the article, Lars introduces a Danish version of the Google business model: cycling to work, playing ping pong in between work and going home at five to be with the family.

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