Mozilla CEO: Chrome was inevitable

Mozilla CEO John Lilly on Tuesday waxed philosophical about the release of Google's new Web browser, Chrome, despite it signaling an attempt by the search giant--and Mozilla's major financier--to become its biggest competitor.

Mozilla CEO John Lilly

(Credit: Mozilla)

Chrome, Lilly says, was inevitable.

"It should come as no real surprise that Google has done something here: their business is the Web, and they've got clear opinions on how things should be," Lilly wrote in his blog Tuesday. "Chrome will be a browser optimized for the things that they see as important."

The beta version of Chrome, to be available later Tuesday for Windows systems, is an obvious alternative to Firefox for those Web surfers fed up with Microsoft's long-reigning Internet Explorer browser.

Mozilla and Google have had a long and very fruitful relationship. Google is the default search engine on the Mozilla Firefox browser, and the company pays Mozilla large sums for the privilege: $56 million of the $66 million that Mozilla Corp. made in 2006.

But Lilly, writing in his blog, said he welcomed the competition posed by Google. Lilly said Mozilla would continue its financial relationship with Google until 2011 and would continue to work with the search giant on technical collaborations such as crash reports system Breakpad.

Paul Kim, vice president of marketing for Mozilla, said that Google staff would be allowed to continue to contribute to the Mozilla Foundation's projects. "As a 100 percent open-source project, we welcome contributions to Firefox from everyone," he said.

"More smart people thinking about ways to make the Web good for normal human beings is good, absolutely," Lilly said.

"Competition often results in innovation of one sort or another: in the browser you can see that this is true in spades this year, with huge JavaScript performance increases, security process advances, and user interface breakthroughs. I'd expect that to continue now that Google has thrown their hat in the ring."

Brett Winterford reported for ZDNet Australia, based in Sydney.

Click here for full coverage of the Google Chrome launch.

[codevalley]

I think John has no other option other than sounding optimistic, after all Google is the biggest financier of Mozilla. How would it be, if Microsoft throws an open bid for Mozilla, the way it did with Yahoo! ?

[sketchee]

I fully believe the winner will be consumers. They're absolutely right that competition will drive improvements in this space

[toredefine]

I agree with Codevalley. But I believe there are other reasons why Mozilla "sounds" optimistic. I believe wholeheartedly the comments, John Lilly and Mozilla, made is honest. I don't believe Microsoft will throw a bid to Mozilla. If anything, Microsoft will just improve their browser.

[Megarain]

Well, I think the big thing is, if Google does crush Mozilla, then they would be the first ones to buy up the old Moz corp people.

Also, any one remember google Talk? Didn't work too well.

But hey, who knows. Maybe Moz will take over Chrome from google when they are bored.

[Kwasiowusu]

Poor guy has no alternative but to bear and grin it, as Google screws Mozilla. After all, Mozilla gets most of their finances from the self same Google.
Google is now like the good old mafia Don's, who just come up and make you an offer you can't refuse.
Google to Mozilla: "its our way, or the cement shoes and trip to the bottom of the sea."

[notacyborg]

Of course Mozilla will welcome a new competitor. They will eventually run out of things to steal from Opera...

[this1!]

go away

[MadLyb]

MS needs Mozilla like they need Macs to provide the appearance of competition.

Personally, I don't think we need another dang browser, even if it is Google.

[smatofu]

Chrome looks like a browser that will become an operating system.

[Chorizotarian]

Everyone at Mozilla is so nice. I deem this totally unacceptable. Let's see some fur fly! :P

[bigpicture]

This is only one piece of the puzzle. There may be functionality planned for Android that is not supported by current browsers, so Google needs to be able to control the whole functionality stack related to Android.

[AspDotNetDvlpr]

This is the end of the web as we know it!

[someguy999]

so here's the next question... since Google and mozilla were more-or-less one in the same company. How many people will defect to Google? I like Firefox (I use both IE and Firefox), we probably all knew it was coming, I guess the "buy vs. build" cost just didn't make it a viable option to buy Mozilla straight up.

Oh well, it will be interesting to see how many googlers get joind from Mozilla.

[Zaunto]

I love Firefox. Anything to not be stuck with IE. PLEASE tell me Google with make a Universal Binary Mac version of this browser?

[Mr. Dee]

It sounds like the Search Partnership will be ending in 2011. What does that mean from there on? Will Firefox choose another engine Live or AskJeeves or build a home grown solution?

[GonzoGeezerITGuy]

The statement regarding Chrome becoming a basis for an online OS has merit.
The multi-process idea seems to come from ERLang where it spawns a separate VM for each process.
Look where the funding is going for Ubuntu server. ... Optimization for virtualization. VMWare has hired Cloud Computing "pros" ....

I see the day coming where you have a 'stock install' of some sort of minimal debain based linux os to use as your own - with out the complexity of the Amazon E2C.

Its always a great time to be in the business... Its fun to watch the great brains at work.

[Foggy]

I have two thoughts, One couldn't Google be original in the name for their browser? Anyone who uses any of the following browsers Netscape Navigator, Mozilla Firefox or Flock, has a CHROME FILE. It is the first file listed if you open up the browsers in Windows Explorer. Certainly someone with some level of intelligence at Google had to have noticed that.

As for the demise of Mozilla, I wouldn't count on it. What I would love to see is Mozilla go back to it's roots, go back to the original magic that existed in Netscape before the scummiest company on the face of the Web bought out Netscape and trashed it's good name(AOL for those with short memories). I will continue to use Netscape products for as long as they will work. I do use Flock, rarely use Firefox and I'll try Chrome, but I doubt it will get much use.

[Foggy]

I just downloaded Chrome, it looks just as boring as Firefox. If you haven't tried Flock give it a try. It's Home Page is filled with places to go, things to read, news to know. The primary reason I still use Netscape most of the time is that Netscape 7.2 is the last and only browser and email program combination. I'm able to receive an email and click on a link and go directly to it or be browsing the web and go and check my email in one click. If Flock would allow me to connect directly to the Netscape 7.2 email program and visa versa I'd be using those two.

[Parsifal71]

Opera certainly has built in email

[Parsifal71]

You may also like to check out Mozilla SeaMonkey

[sketchee]

There are plenty of email plugins for firefox to add this capability. My personal opinion is having a minimalist browser and then users can add the features they want. Too much bloat with things I don't want or need in Flock

[faseidl]

Chrome is disruptive technology and seeing it downplayed by the established players is a text book symptom described by Clayton Christensen years ago.

The interesting questions to me are not if Chrome (beta) is ready for prime time (it is not) or which established browser will suffer more (they all will.) Much more

interesting is that Chrome has all the trappings of a disruptive technology hiding in plain sight. Established browser vendors may publicly downplay Chrome... but I can

guarantee that they are (or at least should be) taking this very seriously.

I wrote more about this idea here:

Google Chrome: Disruptive Technology
http://faseidl.com/public/blog/212172

[onlyauser]

Do not trust Google Chrome.

Chrome is spyware mascaraing as a browser.

[proudmdf]

I personally believe that Chrome will not really take off for a while. It seems to not only have a bad visual style, though poor functionality also. I can also assure everyone here that Microsoft would never buy Mozilla; and Mozilla would never sell the open source project anyhow.