A faster Google Chrome means what?

A browser upstart like Google's Chrome must have some cleaving edge if it's to hack its way into the marketshare predominated by Microsoft's Internet Explorer, and to a far lesser extent, Firefox. Since Google Chrome doesn't yet have the add-on capabilities that have earned Mozilla's browser rabid support from open-source circles as well as from the browsing community as a whole, Chrome must best it in some other skill. Google's browser is certainly headed towards supporting add-ons, but what it can deliver now is speed.

A page-loading boost of 30 percent is what Google claims it's brought the latest browser update, version 2.0.172.28. And it has (see our stats). Ironically, the lack of extensibility is one factor that may help keep Google Chrome skipping along. The more Firefox extensions in play, users lament, the draggier performance becomes.

In addition to back-end work on the JavaScript and Webkit browser engines in part responsible for Chrome's acceleration, Google has added a smattering of new features. The ability to delete thumbnails from appearing in a visual history when you open a new browser tab is one; full-screen mode and the ability to store and autofill your passwords, name, and other commonly recurring data into Web forms are two others.

Seemingly not to be outdone, Mozilla has also announced this past week a project to improve the way it currently handles add-ons, and Mozilla-based browser publisher Flock released an update to its browser aimed at the social networking crowd. Flock 2.5 reveals new support for Twitter (including searching), for Facebook Chat, and for cross-posting photos and blog posts to Facebook that you originally create in the browser for another service also integrated into Flock.

The take-home message is this. While neither Chrome, Firefox, Flock, nor Opera or Safari can currently claim more than a modest fraction of the Windows browser market, the ones proactively gunning for a larger slice of the pie understand that in an increasingly browser-based computing world, the battle of the browsers is more about establishing a lasting platform of computing authority than it is about creating a neat alternative app. In other words, watch out, Mozilla and Microsoft. If past trends are an indication, Google is slowly building up its browser and will soon integrate its numerous online Web apps and services to do what it does best: play for keeps.