While I'm Thinking About It

In other news, I've invoked the Midnight Rule because I was also working on a new TOP-SECRET PROJECT^TM

IN A WORLD* with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Nautilus, Konqueror, Lynx, and Contiki, there are some out there who feel there's still room for one more. Introducing Google Chrome, new from the "Don't Be Evil" company. Currently in beta, but then again, so's Gmail, the last time I checked.

I'm of mixed feelings about this. Obviously, their target here is the same as nearly every other browser on the market: Microsoft's Internet Explorer. While more browsers are certainly a very good thing from a competition standpoint (as long as they support standards--I'm looking at you, Netscape 4), my fear is that Google is going to end up missing the mark. Currently, IE has somewhere in the neighborhood of 75% of the Windows browser market. These are the people for whom Microsoft products work well enough, and they see no reason to change. That number probably won't change dramatically. Which leaves the other 25%, the folks who tweak, and customize, and dual boot Linux because it's free and that's neat-o. They're running some sort of Mozilla-powered browser already. They're the ones who are going to see what the big new deal is, and Firefox is in line to get hurt the most.

Or, maybe I should say, we're the ones who are going to see what the big new deal is. Of course I downloaded it. It's nice. Gmail's a lot faster. So are Project Wonderful and Entrecard. And this site renders properly. It even imported all my Firefox bookmarks for me.

And that leads me to the current deal-breaker for me. Chrome does not (currently?) let you open up an entire folder of bookmarks in individual tabs. Which is how I like to read my webcomics and blogs.

*Don LaFontaine, RIP