Move over Firefox AND IE

Google is coming after both of you with its own web browser. Right now, it’s only available in a PC version, with Apple and Linux apps to come. Google has had an ad partnership with Firefox, to take on Microslob’s Internet browser presence indirectly, but apparently decided it was time to strike.

That said, per the story, I didn’t even know Google HAD its own IM.

At the same time, contra the Microslob spokesperson touting IE8 (in beta now), given how slow IE7 loads pages, AND given that it has fewer features in many ways than FF2, let alone 3, I ain’t downloading IE 8. Beyond that, IE8 is supposed to use twice as much memory as IE7, itself a memory hog.

Meanwhile, Chrome has seriously souped up JavaScript speed.

Faster, especially much faster page loads mean it can load more complex ads, as well as webpages, which means more ad dinero, as CNET explains.

Over at The Dallas Morning News, Victor Godinez says this could be the Firefox death knell.

A full $56 million of Mozilla’s $66 million of revenue last year came from its Google partnership, which ends in 2011.

Meanwhile, Mozilla’s CEO whistles in the dark with this comment:

As much as anything else, it’ll mean there’s another interesting browser that users can choose.

I disagree with Godinez, though, that Chrome will ONLY hit Firefox. (He claims that IE 8 won’t be hurt because many businesses require its use, and many home users aren’t aware of other browsers.

Victor, this is Google we're talking about. With Google marketing, etc. With Google's own autodownloader program. With Google's Blogger platform likely targeting bloggers to get special blog-related apps on Google.

And, on the business side, Google may push for a package of Google software to be preinstalled on computers.

Wired also disagrees with Godoniz on Chrome vs IE:

It’s an aggressive move destined to put the company even more squarely in the crosshairs of its rival Microsoft, which long ago crushed the most fabled browser of all, Netscape Navigator.

And, it runs JavaScript 10x faster than Firefox or Safari.

Beyond that, Mozilla itself has a services suite in the works that could compete with some Google apps. And, per Google’s IM, Business Week notes that a number of Google products lost steam soon after launch.

Oh, and based on info from Download Safari pages will render correctly in Chrome.

So, the idea of Safari for Windows, at least, should be considered dead.

Sayonara, Steve Jobs, on that baby.

And yet more info on Chrome, specifically in its Terms of Use, indicate Google is intent on becoming more and more of Big Brother all the time.

Given this, I doubt I’ll be any more likely to use Chrome than I will IE8. Indeed, it’s that concern that keeps me from using Google as my RSS reader.

The “Big Brother” worry about Google? Basically, it’s all about the fact that “cloud computing,” at least as Google is now pushing it, represents a loss of control, As John C. Dvorak simply and forcefully details.

In a nutshell, Dvorak says that for some specialized apps, a cloud-based bit of software may well be the superior solution. It’s hard to find what you want as a downloadable app, plus there’s what he calls “nagware”: the update reminders, etc.

Read the whole story for more.

That said, Chrome is NOT necessary, and a cloud-based, cloud-focused or partially cloud-based web browser offers no special convenience.

So, yes, Mozilla should have an eye to its financial future. But, no, it shouldn’t be sweating bullets right now.