Google still has a sense of humor

September 1, 2008 By

Not only did Google announce Chrome (its new browser that’s making a splash all over TechMeme) with a comic book but there’s a bit more funny history as well.

Several years ago Microsoft had a project code-named Chrome. It was supposed to be a multimedia browser. The project was killed a few weeks away from shipping.

There are even still some articles up about the Microsoft Chrome project. Here’s one about the project getting killed.

But, more seriously, and not so humorous: I wonder what will happen to funding for Mozilla’s Firefox now that Google is headed into the browser business?

UPDATE: John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla, left a comment in this post saying that this won’t affect Mozilla. He also was interviewed by Om Malik where he said Mozilla isn’t worried.

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  • http://www.47project.com/ Rich Harris

    I’m excited to try it out…….when I can install it on my Mac! :-)

  • http://www.47project.com Rich Harris

    I’m excited to try it out…….when I can install it on my Mac! :-)

  • http://www.ardentedge.com/ George Toms

    Google Chrome is really fast!

    Now I can sort 200,000 records inside of Browser (Chrome) just in 1 sec. (Faster than Microsoft Excel):

    http://www.ardentedge.com/ex_if.htm

  • http://www.ardentedge.com George Toms

    Google Chrome is really fast!

    Now I can sort 200,000 records inside of Browser (Chrome) just in 1 sec. (Faster than Microsoft Excel):

    http://www.ardentedge.com/ex_if.htm

  • Pat Carlson

    I don’t trust Google.
    And what’s up with the blatant copying from Microsoft (removing the menu bar; putting a “new tab” button, Tools droopdown menu, and Page dropdown menus to the right of the tabs; hiliting the domain name of the address bar’s URL, etc)? You’d think with all those PhDs, they could come up with their own UI.

    The thing i like about Chrome is the ability to mix and match tabs with each other in various windows. That’s very cool to play around with and can even be productive. Beyond that, not much to see here.

    Also, neither the mouse scroll wheel nor the scroll area of my laptop’s touchpad work properly. And when saving a web page, I get the old XP SaveAs dlg rather than the new Vista one. I know Chrome is in beta, but there’s some polishing that needs to be done.

  • Pat Carlson

    I don’t trust Google.
    And what’s up with the blatant copying from Microsoft (removing the menu bar; putting a “new tab” button, Tools droopdown menu, and Page dropdown menus to the right of the tabs; hiliting the domain name of the address bar’s URL, etc)? You’d think with all those PhDs, they could come up with their own UI.

    The thing i like about Chrome is the ability to mix and match tabs with each other in various windows. That’s very cool to play around with and can even be productive. Beyond that, not much to see here.

    Also, neither the mouse scroll wheel nor the scroll area of my laptop’s touchpad work properly. And when saving a web page, I get the old XP SaveAs dlg rather than the new Vista one. I know Chrome is in beta, but there’s some polishing that needs to be done.

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  • kyorakuu shunsui

    My point why Chrome (or any web browser for that matter) won’t ever kill windows is because the world is not like America. Not everyone all over the world is connected to the internet. Not everyone has a fast internet connection. Here in Asia alone, only 2 or 3 countries have blazing fast internet connections (japan, korea, china?). Windows will still exist no matter what Arrington and other web as os supporter say. And if they think that it will only kill windows, think again. Windows has a huge share in the OS market, what’s stopping Chrome from killing Linux and OSX, which are minority in terms of OS usage? These guys are just fanboys and losers like Michael Arrington.

  • kyorakuu shunsui

    My point why Chrome (or any web browser for that matter) won’t ever kill windows is because the world is not like America. Not everyone all over the world is connected to the internet. Not everyone has a fast internet connection. Here in Asia alone, only 2 or 3 countries have blazing fast internet connections (japan, korea, china?). Windows will still exist no matter what Arrington and other web as os supporter say. And if they think that it will only kill windows, think again. Windows has a huge share in the OS market, what’s stopping Chrome from killing Linux and OSX, which are minority in terms of OS usage? These guys are just fanboys and losers like Michael Arrington.

  • http://whitespace.umeshgopinath.com/ Umesh

    Google’s sense of humor goes on to their error messages too. My friend Kiruba had tweeted that he got an error message on chrome saying “Google Chrome has encountered a problem and needs to close. Please tell Microsoft about it” :-)

    http://twitter.com/kiruba/statuses/909088862

  • http://whitespace.umeshgopinath.com Umesh

    Google’s sense of humor goes on to their error messages too. My friend Kiruba had tweeted that he got an error message on chrome saying “Google Chrome has encountered a problem and needs to close. Please tell Microsoft about it” :-)

    http://twitter.com/kiruba/statuses/909088862

  • http://whitespace.umeshgopinath.com/ Umesh

    Another friend of mine also tells that it might have been his windows error message window which said that

  • http://whitespace.umeshgopinath.com Umesh

    Another friend of mine also tells that it might have been his windows error message window which said that

  • http://www.kogmedia.com/ roberts

    there are so many advantages and features with Chrome, such as it’s speed, for example; now if only they would take care it’s quirky cookie management…

  • http://www.kogmedia.com roberts

    there are so many advantages and features with Chrome, such as it’s speed, for example; now if only they would take care it’s quirky cookie management…

  • http://www.lifeofjustin.com/ Justin Wright

    I love how Google always finds ways to add some humor to their products. It sure beats the send an error report messages we see in Windows constantly.

    As far Mozilla, I really don’t think they will be affected that much. Chrome is super fast but firefox has a lot of features that it doesn’t have.

  • http://www.lifeofjustin.com Justin Wright

    I love how Google always finds ways to add some humor to their products. It sure beats the send an error report messages we see in Windows constantly.

    As far Mozilla, I really don’t think they will be affected that much. Chrome is super fast but firefox has a lot of features that it doesn’t have.

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