The James Kilgour BlogA Life Blog.

Internet Explorer, the world’s most popular browser, with a 68% market share has now been upgraded to version 8, with the Release Candidate now available. With the upcoming lunch of Windows 7 which will be bundled with IE8, the European Union is launching an antitrust case.

An article on the BBC news website says the following:

"Microsoft does have the advantage of its browser being shipped with its operating system so people that want to shift have to do a lot of work to shift," said Mr MacDonald, a vice-president of analyst firm Gartner.

The EU last week accused Microsoft of harming competition by bundling its IE browser with its Windows operating system.

I personally think this is ridiculous, and is fueling these antitrust claims. Switching to Firefox, Safari or Opera is easy! It’s just a matter of downloading the program, and taking a minute to install it. Plus, a lot of OEM Manufacturers bundle Firefox with their PCs anyway.

I don’t see the problem with using Internet Explorer anyway. IE8 RC1 is a fine browser, and for those who want to switch, they can. It’s not like the browsers make profit for Microsoft or Mozilla. The EU should spend their time doing something more worthwhile.

JK

Yesterday, Google announced the launch of Google Chrome, a new web browser, from the company whose business is the web.

The news spread across tech sites like the plague, with everyone waiting to try the browser. But is it really better than Internet Explorer?

I’ve been using the software for a few hours now, just going around doing my usual things, checking email, catching up with friends and watching video.

The first thing I noticed was the sleekness of the software’s interface. The way new tabs open up is all very mac-ish, and the way the window integrates with Vista’s glass interface is all very streamlined.

Video works, just as well as in IE or Firefox, and everything seems to work, even pluggins not designed for the new browser. I tested YouTube and BBC iPlayer, which worked perfectly. However, the Channel 4 Watch Online service failed to work due to Google Chrome not having a Windows Media Pluggin. 

Another great feature is the address bar itself, which gives very intuitive guesses at what it is you want, as soon as you begin to type.

The New Tab Page in Chrome is a great development. In IE, all you get is a useless About Tabs page, but in Chrome, you get a lot of info: snapshots of your history and past searches, and your bookmarks as well. 

But is the browser as good as IE? Not yet. Loading Pages seems to take that bit longer than in IE, and the software seems to become suddenly slow. Also, the way it generates pages sometimes goes amiss; my webmail page for instance looses it’s beauty in Chrome.

The overall design isn’t brilliant either. In IE, you have access to everything you need on every page, but without being intrusive. With Chrome though, to access your bookmarks, you have to open a new tab. Also, there’s no individual print button for example, or a history button. It just seems to take… longer.

That said, Chrome can only get better. Some of it’s features would make IE fantastic. One can only wonder if IE8 will incorporate some of it…

JK