Mozilla Chief Welcomes Google Chrome to Market

September 03 12:05:01 PM, Yahoo News

PC Magazine - Will Google Chrome sink Firefox? Not exactly, according to Mozilla chief executive John Lilly.

"More smart people thinking about ways to make the Web good for normal human beings is good, absolutely," Lilly wrote in a blog post. "Competition often results in innovation … I'd expect that to continue now that Google has thrown their hat in the ring."

Google announced Monday that it has been hard at work on an open-source browser known as Chrome, a beta version of which will be released in 100 countries on Tuesday.

Google's entry into the browser market means "there's another interesting browser that users can choose," Lilly wrote. "More than ever, we need to build software that people care about and love."

Chrome's release will not significantly affect Mozilla's relationship with Google, Lilly said. "Mozilla and Google have always been different organizations, with different missions, reasons for existing, and ways of doing things," he wrote.

Mozilla has collaborated with Google on the development of Breakpad, a system used for crash reports, as well as security features that have been built into Firefox. Mozilla and Google also recently expanded their financial partnership until November 2011.

"All those aligned efforts should continue," Lilly predicted. "And similarly, the parts where we're different, with different missions, will continue to be separate."

Mozilla will continue to be a non-profit organization focused on keeping the Web "open and participatory," Lilly wrote.

Nonetheless, Lilly touted upcoming features for Firefox 3.1, like open video and a next-generation Javascript engine, dubbed TraceMonkey, as well as Weave, Ubiquity and Firefox Mobile. So far, Google has not indicated whether Chrome will be made available as a mobile browser, or whether developers will have to modify the open-source code to get it to run on mobile devices.

Earlier this summer, Mozilla released Firefox 3, which garnered 8 million downloads in 24 hours.

Blogger Kevin Newcomb of Search Engine Watch predicted that Chrome is more of a threat to Microsoft's Windows operating system than its browser business.

"By developing its own open-source browser, Google is able to establish de-facto standards for Web applications," Newcomb wrote in a Tuesday blog post.

Source

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