Google Chrome: The Browser Is the New OS

From the creator of one of the world’s speediest websites we’re told we are getting “a clean, fast browser” that “gets out of your way” and “improves speed and responsiveness across the board”. A faster, better user experience is a wonderful thing, but we see something even more exciting in the Google Chrome debut—an irreversible shift in action from the operating system to the browser. In fact we believe that the Google Chrome announcement signifies that the browser IS now the new operating system.

It used to be that applications ran on top of the old OS, which in turn ran on chips. Now web-enabled applications and anything smacking of cloud computing and Web 2.0 run on the browser and the browser is where these applications meet desktop hardware—thus the browser has become the new OS. Just as the old OS made Intel chips useful, the browser will make the Internet realize its full potential as a computing platform.

This shift does not mean the old OS will go away, but it does foretell a decline in innovation within the old OS because the most compelling new applications do not run there. It is now the browser that juggles next generation applications, and will correct for performance problems because it is network savvy. The browser, not the old OS will be the future focal point for innovation.

For the long-term health and safety of the Internet we hope to escape a Microsoft Windows OS-like monoculture. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that Google Chrome lives up to its billing, and Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera and other alternatives remain vibrant. A diverse choice of browsers can prevent an “Irish potato famine” type disaster in which con artists and hackers concentrate their efforts on the vulnerabilities of a single new OS and bring the Internet to its knees and all of us with it.

Post Script: We stayed up late last night to take an initial spin of Google Chrome and our first impression was good. It lives up to the promise of being clean and noticeably faster. In fact we found its no-frills look and zippiness delightfully refreshing. And we were interested to see that the clever online comic book explaining Chrome’s why’s and how’s compares it to an OS—so perhaps we’re on track with our analogy.

• FireFox
• Google Chrome
• Microsoft Internet Explorer
• Opera
• Safari