Google launched it’s new open source web browser a few days back. It is called Google Chrome. Generally I am very excited when Google launches a new product. But this time I didn’t liked this move by Google. I have been using Firefox for sometime now and I am very happy with it. I liked the Firefox 3 which was released sometime back. It made Firefox even better. What I don’t understand is this – ” What is the need of another open source browser project. Firefox is doing great. There are also many other great open source browsers.

Chrome Logo

I tried out chrome for sometime. Liked its look and feel. Its feels really nice with some great features. But I think that Google has worked with Mozilla in the past and Mozilla has included Google as the default search engine in Firefox. If Google thought that something was lagging in Firefox they should have joined in the development of Firefox so as to improve the standard of an already great browser. Linux and Firefox are the best mascots of the open source movement. If Google is really committed to open source philosophy, it should try to make Firefox better and not launch its competitor. I have read in one blog post (I don’t remember where) that this may be a strategy by Google to save money it now contributes to the Firefox project for including it as default search engine. With Chrome Google will be able to save that money and also popularize it’s other products like Gmail and Google Earth. The early adopters of Chrome will be the people who use Firefox now. So most likely Chrome will dig into the market share of Firefox.

I didn’t liked this move by Google even as Google says that it will release native Linux version soon and not something running under wine. But I think that in the world of opensource everyone has the right to make their own softwares and I it is good that such a big firm taking interset in developing open source products. But I still don’t understand why we need Chrome.