Mozilla to launch web browser for cellphones

Mozilla, the world’s second-largest Internet browser firm, is all set to release its Firefox web browser Fennec for mobile phones next year, in order to compete with existing rivals including Opera Mini, Safari, Chrome, Nokia, Netfront and Internet Explorer for mobile. The war for browser market share is set to be shifted to the mobile market, experts say.

Globally, on the mobile front, Opera commands the largest market share—about 26%, followed by Safari (22%), Nokia web browser (19%) and iTouch (10%). Other web browsers which may face competition from Fennec will be Netfront, Android, Blackberry and Sony PSP.

However, on desktops Mozilla’s Firefox browser commands a global market share of about 25%. Internet Explorer, commands a majority share of almost 63% while Safari has a market share of about 5%. In India, however, Opera is the clear leader on the mobile with a market share of 63%, followed by Nokia at 26%.

The statistics may change next year as Firefox launches Fennec. On the desktop side Firefox has already captured a market share of 30% in India after Microsoft’s Internet explorer which has a market share of 50%.

Indian market is also quick to adopt new technologies. It’s evident from the fact that relatively new Chrome already has a share of about 11% in India, compared to 5%, globally.

Firefox mobile is expected to be available for most open environments like Android, Nokia’s Maemo, Symbian and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile. Apple’s Safari for iPhones will however be in safe territory as Fennec may not be available on iPhone.

Fennec is expected to include touchscreen support, pop-up blockers with a tabbrowsing interface. Mozilla’s Fennec may also be available for desktops based on Windows and Linux, but the prime focus of it will be the mobile phone, for which it will be optimised.

The earlier browser wars were fought from 1995 onwards when Internet Explorer made Netscape vanish from the marketplace by its sheer dominance in operating systems. The years following 2000 saw erosion of IE’s market share by Google, Opera and Firefox and extinction of Netscape Navigator.

Microsoft has still got the largest market share on desktops. But mobile phones being a generally non monopolistic environment may see more upheaval.

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Google Uses Biggest Asset to Boost Chrome Market Share

Opera 10.5 Alpha may have just become the first web browser to perform faster than Chrome, but it now looks like Google is ready to bring out its biggest weapon of all as it wages war on rivals.

The Web giant is placing ads on its Google search homepages around the world (including .com) promoting Chrome under the tagline: “A faster way to browse the web”. It also includes a direct link to download the browser.

Why is this so significant? Firstly it is a major break in protocol for Google since it has famously kept its search homepage(s) as minimalistic as possible. Secondly, Google.com is the most visited page on the Internet meaning Chrome is now actively being pushed to an unparalleled audience.

The really ingenious part? Google indentifies the browser visiting the page before deciding whether to show the ad or not and it isn’t as simple as Chrome = no ad, everything else = ad. The first part of this sentence is true, Chrome users don’t get an ad while Internet Explorer users do. By contrast Firefox users only get more subtle link to a ‘Google Pack’ of which Chrome is a part of software bundle. This is most likely because Firefox is a major Google business partner. Opera? Safari? I don’t know, I don’t use them so let us know.

Should you be happy in your browser choice (with IE? Really?) then the Chrome ad can be closed and won’t reappear in future. Either way, however, Google ultimately wins since Chrome brand awareness increases and this will undoubtedly help recognition of the similarly named Chrome OS when it eventually rolls out later next year.

So where is Chrome market share at present? It is just inched past Safari at 4.4 per cent and has been available on the PC for just over a year. This puts it roughly inline with the annual gains made by Firefox, which is at 24.7 per cent after five years. IE still leads the way with 63.6 per cent, though the finalised Windows browser ballot screen could change all that.

If you are considering switching to Chrome then jump on in, the water’s warm – I just migrated myself. One big tip though: go for the beta version (4.x) , it’s solid as a rock, eliminates the Facebook glitches in the ‘stable’ 3.x edition, is faster and – vitally – supports third party extensions.

Links :
via Business News Insider
Google Chrome Beta

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Orkut to soon get an updated user interface?

Google Operating System has reported that Google Brazil website is showcasing an interesting Orkut screenshot on the Chrome section.

The screenshot showcases a different version of their Orkut social networking service.

Maybe, its a sign that a major overhaul to the user interface of Orkut is coming in the coming weeks.

Orkut is not very popular on the web. Bulk of its users are located in two markets India and Brazil. With Facebook targeting Orkut members in these two countries, Google has little incentive to keep on innovating. Looks like they are not giving up yet.

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Google and Mozilla – A new “Complicated” relationship

When you are rich and friendly residential neighbour goes into having competition with you, what do you do? That’s what Mozilla has to figure out now that Google has brought out its new Chrome browser to compete with Firefox.

Mozilla and Google were always considered as best of friends, right down to living next door to each other in Silicon Valley. For most of that period, Google was a mentor and a patron to Mozilla as it relighted the browser wars and fought the good fight against the likes of Microsoft and Apple. Now, Google is evolving and will obviously be backing its own Chrome product and things are surely bound to change here.

Mozilla has even moved across town, physically separating itself from its old mentor, and is working to hold onto it’s share of the browser marketplace against three giant competitors instead of the earlier two, according to a New York Times story. Google, until now, has not yet made the kind of inroads that say Mozilla and Apple have done against Internet Explorer, but you can never count out a company like Google with its vast knowledgeable team. Mozilla needs to understand and look into the new situation, and to learn to compete with their old friend and new competitor, Google.

There is more at stake here than just the numbers mentioned. Everyone else is in this game for the money. Mozilla is the lone standard-bearer of the Open Source Philosophy, in which everyone can pitch in and anyone can get a copy of and customize the code. Mozilla operates in a completely different world that its competitors.

Sandeep Krishnamurthy, the director of the business administration program at the University of Washington at Bothell, recently wrote a paper on Firefox’s success, says “Mozilla is about a community coming together and saying it can compete with the largest software company in the world. There really is nothing like it.”

Google says that they are not out to harm Mozilla and its status in the market and so far they have not. Google Chrome only controls about 2 percent of the market while Mozilla is still growing and now stands at around 22.5 percent. Although there is little fear at either company that Google will stop supporting Mozilla, everyone also has to admit that Google will continue to feel business and financial pressure to use and promote Chrome.

As far as Mozilla are concerned, they have vowed to keep working harder to keep Firefox viable by continuing to improve their product, and that their areas of clear leadership in the browser war may become fewer. Still, Mozilla and Firefox now have a very strong track record and they, too, will be hard to ignore as the struggle for browser supremacy continues.

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