Test Driving Google, Chrome wheels and all

So, decided to actually play with Chrome to form a view, to say that this is all a tad hyped would be a dramatic understatement - it reminds me of Microsoft in its heyday when new wotsits were greeted with messianic fervour by the faithful*.

Anyway, downloaded it all, fired it up, read the book, watched the movie, and - guess what - its a browser!

Yes, its one of those things that drives me around the web. It seems to do most everything my other 2 browsers do (Firefox and IE) at about the same speed and with vague differences in layout - kinda like driving a different car, you take a bit of time to work out where everything is. It may have a wankel rotary engine rather than a straight-8 under the bonnet (though Jof is impressed, so it must be good), and a few new thingies that the others will copy asap, but it certainly didn't feel like I'd stepped from Ford to Ferrari ( or vice versa ).

This is not the story.

No, there are two other stories here. The first story is the reaction of the blogosphere - You can read it all on Techmeme, but to save time I have designed a little 2x2 matrix to define it:



Let no one accuse us of not doing serious analysis.....

The second I alluded to in my last post, which was of course independent and analytical - ie the strategic implications of Google moving into the browser game, and is really the big story here.

I've read quite a few other blogs since I wrote that yesterday morning - many have poured more detail on it (and some have even been a bit flippant in getting the point across) but I think strategically what I wrote stands as the main issues for any user. In fact, reading the TOS I reckon my one hypothesis, of Chrome being reluctant to stop Ads is strengthened:

17.1 Some of the Services are supported by advertising revenue and may display advertisements and promotions. These advertisements may be targeted to the content of information stored on the Services, queries made through the Services or other information.

17.2 The manner, mode and extent of advertising by Google on the Services are subject to change without specific notice to you.

17.3 In consideration for Google granting you access to and use of the Services, you agree that Google may place such advertising on the Services.

And that is the essential reason why I won't use Chrome so long as there are Ad free alternatives available - I do not believe that 17.3 is a fair exchange and you know that underlying that is data collection and mining of all on-browser behaviour.

(Update - for you doubters, here's the ToS:

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights that you already hold in Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content, you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services.

ie you have copyright, but we have perpetual and irrevocable rights. Now Google may claim thats not what they mean and all their intentions are good, but I've been around this block more than once - in any legal dispute, it will mean exactly what is says - and the other browsers don't have it. These guys have been working on this for 2 years, it ain't an accident - so, as with Facebook which does the same thing, handle with care )

Oh - as I'm writing, news comes in that it turns out Chrome just happens to let hackers into Microsoft Windows (the Evil Competitors') system. That featu.....bug'll be fixed in a hurry then

*Or is it just easier to see all the flock in the online aggregated world?

An afterthought - it is a very nice browser, and kudos to the team - I suspect if they were ex Googlers they'd be canonified - but as I note above, the browser per se is not the big story here, its the "why is Google doing this".