Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Does Google Chrome mean Firefox is not good enough?

Google released its own web browser based on WebKit today. Well, it's too early to take Chrome seriously and also GNU/Linux and OSX support is not even ready. Nevertheless, Google's choice of WebKit made me wonder why.

It seems WebKit is easier to port to devices of different size and resource capacity. I read a while ago that KDE and Epiphany were moving to WebKit too. I'm not an expert in browser's engine technology but I think such interest in WebKit might be technical as well as greater flexibility with its license.

But what does all these mean to Firefox and its engine, Gecko? Does this mean soon everyone will abandon it just because big names are not interested in it? Or not too far in the future, its usage shrink significantly?

Although these are not particularly good signs for Mozilla, I think Gecko is more than a layout engine; it powers one of the most popular web browsers (I wanted to say the most but some loosers might argue why the IE is more used!!!). Firefox has a wealth of features in addition to its technical merits and Google need a lot of time to build a similar one. I guess by the time other catch up with Firefox features, Mozilla has perfected its Gecko further to stay competitive.

In the mean time, Firefox the web and support the browser that brought some joy to the net.