Browser Wars

A number of the blogs I read are on about Google's "Chrome" browser, which is gaining steam very slowly. The latest news is that a firm that provides a statistics service to small Web sites has put out a Web release stating that Chrome has passed Safari in usage statistics, implying that it's on its way to being a contender.

I don't know if I agree with that assertion. While the numbers seem reasonable, it's just not very newsworthy: like crowing that your off-brand cola sells more than another off-brand, even though you're clearly unable to compete with Coke or Pepsi. But even if/when Chrome is able to rival the big players, I don't know if I can get excited, or even remotely interested, in the competition.

What seems to be missing from this late stage of the "war" is any appreciable benefit to using one browser or the other, or any impact of the competitors on the nature of the game. Back when Netscape and Microsoft were the contenders and the battle was more heated, I definitely had the sense that the outcome of the battle for market share was constant and dramatic innovation - and regardless of which browser was "on top," the internet itself benefitted from the struggle for dominance.

Netscape, in particular, gave us the ability to use forms in Web pages, choose typeface and color, use script to control browser events, and a number of other capabilities we now take for granted. Although it was painful and time-consuming to have t develop two or three different versions of each page to suit the capabilities and limitations of different browsers, the long-run benefit to the medium was enormous.

Now that the war has cooled off and the major players are generally adherent to standards, the "benefits" of using one versus the other are negligible ... and innovation has slowed to a crawl.

And while I'm thankful for the breather, I wonder if it's been a good trade in that sense.