Comments on: Google Chrome needs more than hype

If Google's new Web browser is going to gain traction with the general Internet-using public, the search giant will need to do a few things differently, says Jon Oltsik.

[deeduya]

It doesn't support Java.

I tried to play some games at iwon.com and it told me that I needed java. I already have java downloaded onto my pc. So it doesn't have java. What kind of browser doesn't support JAVA!

[grantcv1]

I develop a somewhat sophisticaled AJAX application for tracking California legislation. I have developed it to run on IE and Firefox. Getting it to work on yet another browser (with a tiny marketshare) didn't seem like a welcome development. I already had skipped on Safari as the effort didn't seem worth the payback.

Nonetheless, being a geek at heart, I decided to give a port to Chrome a shot. The good news is that the port was quick and easy and I was completely ported over in three days. The biggest issue was not being able to do XSLT client-side on XML fragments. That, and a few other inconsistancies behind me and I was up and running.

But in the process I learned that Chrome is based on the same WebKit base as Apple's Safari so now porting to Safari is in sight and I am close to being done with that too. But that also revealed to me what a tremendous amount of hype surrounds Chrome. While I use Google, GMail, Google Analytics, Google Maps, Google Groups, Google Docs, and Google Talk, I am constantly disappointed how Google's efforts into everything that doesn't relate directly to their search engine and advertising are so half-heartedly supported.

Building a fast and stable JavaScript engine is a good accomplishment, but the spec these days is pretty well-defined. Nothing earth shattering their. Building a stable tabbed browsing environment is nice, but you cannot compare that accomplishment to building an operating system - its just the shell of an application - I have built many myself. The real challenge in to building a browser seems to be the rendering engine and the security infrastructure.

So what's the big deal about Chrome? While I like Chrome, its marketing is totally aimed at geeks and it doesn't seem to cover any new ground. Google, market valuation aside, needs to demonstrate that it can do more than simply push out application toys built by their developers as part of their Google Labs experiment. Chrome, and most other Google apps, need to be supported in the long haul, losing their "BETA" tags and becoming realy supported products.