Here's an illustration done by NY Times, it's a great depiction of the movement from the current browsers. There's certainly a lot of change going on with Chrome, FireFox 3.1 just around the corner which is claimed to be faster then V8 and also IE8 final which is supposed to be fully standards compliant for the first time.



They have also written up an ok article, here's a snippet:

And above all: what is Google up to?

Is it trying to build a platform for running the software of the future, thereby de-emphasizing Windows and other operating systems?

That’s a yes. Google even went to the trouble of rewriting Javascript, the programming language that underlies many such online programs. According to online Javascript speed tests, Google’s version is twice as fast as IE7’s.

Will Google ensure that its own services run better in Chrome than in other browsers? Is this part of Google’s great conspiracy?

That’s a no and a no. Chrome is open-source, meaning that its code is available to everyone for inspection or improvement -- even to its rivals. That’s a huge, promising twist that ought to shut up the conspiracy theorists.

You can read the rest here

It is interesting to see how Google progresses with the shift towards an OS/Browser combo, they have got a lot of the pieces they just need putting all together.

Maybe things will keep moving towards richer web apps and away from desktop apps, and the browser will become the defacto Operating System. It's not too hard to imagine, what do you think?

Cool picture though, very clever.

It is interesting to see how Google progresses with the shift towards an OS/Browser combo, they have got a lot of the pieces they just need putting all together.

Maybe things will keep moving towards richer web apps and away from desktop apps, and the browser will become the defacto Operating System. It's not too hard to imagine, what do you think?

Cool picture though, very clever.

Yes for sure an operating system is really just a big app running on hardware, so that makes a browser an app running on another app. It is really not much of a step to make the browser handle hardware and startup/shutdown related things to allow a PC to boot in to a browser instead of an OS.

Maybe things will go a full circle like the days of the Commodore 64, there was no OS or Browser you just flicked the switch and the PC came on instantly then you could type and load programs.

It would be easy to have Chrome on flash memory (kind of like a portable) and the PC boots directly in to Chrome and from there you can browse, email and load other things.

Interesting to think about.

Can I load a browser like Chorme to be my first app before any other app loads up. Where that i can schedule the apps to load when my OS gets started? Any clue?

You need to create a registry key:

Start
Run
Regedit
Expand to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
Right click right panel
Select New + "String Value"
Name it "ChromeStarter"
Double click it
"C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe"

Change the username with your PC's username, the path is assuming your running XP so just change that for Vista.

Then there's programs like Arrange Startup, Startup Xpert or possibly AutoRuns from Microsoft/SysInternals (All Freeware) that let you configure the order of applications on boot.

If you are finding Chrome isn't real usable straight away because other programs are booting and chewing resources, if one of the above doesn't do it then Startup Delayer allows you to add delays to the startup sequence. Also note, it's advisable not to alter your antivirus/firewall application load order.

as to how to make it go on startup its a lot easier just to make a shortcut of it in start>all programs>startup

ie8 will only passes and is planned only to pass acid2, while the nightly builds of chrome give you a 100/100 on the acid3 (ie8 gets 22/100)

firefox 3.1b1 is pretty dang slow on sunspider (2x as slow) so unless they get cracking and chrome doesn't move i would expect chrome to stay in the lead.

and for me ie takes 65 seconds to do the sunspider test and chrome 1.8 :/ i have worried that may be a problem on my machine though...

and lastly if google ever made a os it would be awesome, as of now im using pendrivelinux 2008 (based on mandriva) on a 2gb usb and i still have 1.3gb free and i can carry it anywhere :P (no chrome though )