So the rumours of Google joining the browser wars came to fruition this week with the announcement of Chrome.

Looking through the specs I don't see anything revolutionary but then it's based on standard Open Source code so how different did you expect it to be ?  In fact looking at the specs of all the browsers out there it's seems to me to be almost down to particular features that suit the way that YOU use the internet will determine which browser you use. (Unless, that is, you're someone that wont use IE because it comes from Microsoft.)  Even Microsoft seem to be back in the fray in a serious way with IE8 features up there with Firefox 3 and Opera 9. 

I couldn't find anything that leapt off the page and said "here's a great reason to change" so the success of Chrome is going to be down to a couple of things:

• How much effort (money) will Google expend to promote its use
• Delivery method

Both are significant.  I doubt we'll see any record breaking downloads as we did with Firefox 3 but the second has the potential to ramp up the usage over time.  If Google take the stealth route as Apple do with Safari and iTunes we could see numbers rack up by default as users inadvertently end up with Chrome because they've just updated their Google Desktop or whatever.

So we've got another big player in the market which will, hopefully, drive the competition harder to benefit us all.

From a Website owners viewpoint (and therefore a Sitemorse view) this means yet another Browser that may give compatibility issues.  Chrome will be HTML standards compliant to the same degree as Firefox and Opera (and the upcoming IE8) so it will cause similar headaches.

As with the other browsers we recommend you keep your Code Quality score as high as practicable to help towards ensuring compatibility.  See my previous blogs on this subject   http://blog.sitemorse.com/2008/06/ie8-standards-compliance-issue.html http://blog.sitemorse.com/2008/06/firefox-3-hits-8-million-downl.html