Beta Beta! The Browser Wars cont'd

Thinking of the introductions of 2 browser betas I can't help but thing of the robot in Buck Rogers. I don't know if that's how it sounded but it I remember it being the robot always trying to be cool and using all the latest slang. Well looking at the browsers I can't help but think the same thing. Here we have 2 browsers in beta, one brand new, the other an update to an old staple, both trying to be cool. As you may know, Microsoft has launched the beta edition of Internet Explorer 8. At the same time, Google, in an attempt to join the browser landscape has come out with their own browser, dubbed Chrome.

Now when you look at browsers today, there's not much different between all of them. There's Opera, IE7, FireFox and Sapphire. What they all have in common are the tabs. Sure there are nuances in all of them but for the most part, users would use them for the same thing. For me, I have several Yahoo, Gmail, MSN and AIM accounts. With all these browsers, I can manage all the accounts at once. In some instances I can even do instant messaging with the different accounts. I don't think I would be different from most other users who have all of the browsers installed.

Based on the reviews, there are some cool things coming out with these new browsers. Chrome has detachable tabs which can be unhinged from the main browswer and placed anywhere on screen. These tabs can also be saved to the desktop as shortcuts. I can see several uses for this. Having a site on your desktop that's only a click away is very useful and cool. No trying to look up and down your bookmarks.

On IE8's side, one of the first things promised is speed. Today, FireFox 3.0 is way faster that this slug and when I use on my Windows XP machine, my machine chokes up. Since FireFox came out, I stopped using IE7. I have a Vista laptop and use IE7 on it as its a little faster given the power of the machine. What's promised is that IE8 would be a good competitor of FireFox 3.0 in terms of speed.

The most talked about feature of IE8 is what they are calling "porn mode". Here if you want to completely cover your tracks after visiting any site, you can. You are given the choice of which cookies to delete. Incidentally, some of these features are already available in Sapphire but not to the granular level that IE8 would provide.

I guess there are more features that make these browsers special but we'll have to see. Now in terms of the browser wars, I don't see IE8 losing. Afterall, IE, both 6 and 7 and yes there are may who still insist on using this mess, have a 70% market share of the browser landscape. One has to wonder if this will continue with IE8. For one thing, GoogleTalk was supposed to challenge the IM market but did not.

Now hopefully there's not any changes to how sites have to be written to accommodate these apps. If this is the case, then we potentially have the problem of a big headache for web designers and developers. In fact, there are still some nuances that have to be addressed for IE7 and FireFox.

For me, my biggest concern is how fast these browsers will be. In the not too distant future, there should be a beta for FireFox 3.1 coming out. We'll then have a Beta Beta Beta situation to deal with. Until then, I'll use what I have and will soon begin testing of both Chrome and IE8. At that time I'll post my findings.