SillyDog701

[DJGM]

There are reports that Google are in the process of creating their own web browser application.
Apparently they've hired (or poasched) staffers from Microsoft and Sun Microsystems for this.

Google is spending some of the cash it raised from its IPO on headhunting staff to
build a web browser. Staff have already been poached from Microsoft and Sun.

But . . . if Google are building a browser, will it be yet another one of those "wraparound" GUI's
that relies on the (technically obsolete) IE/Trident engine, therefore making it Windows only?

Perhaps they're could help themselves to some Mozilla source code and build it on Gecko,
potentially making it a cross platform application for Windows Mac OS X, Linux and Unix?

Or, could Google be teaming up with Opera Software, and build it upon the "Presto" engine.
Like Gecko, this option could also potentially make it a cross platform browser application

Maybe they'll do as Apple did with Safari, and build it upon the KHTML engine Konqueror.

Then again, perhaps they might even ignore Trident, Gecko, Presto and KHTML, and they
could be putting a completely new, and original browser rendering engine of their own . . .

Click here for the "Google builds a browser" article at TheRegister.co.uk . . .

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.1) Gecko/20040707

[Don_HH2K]

Chances are that Google wouldn't use Trident, becuse it wouldn't be cross-platform code. They probably wouldn't use KHTML, because it has yet to be ported to Windows, since Windows doesn't have the right libraries to run it. They could use Presto, but Opera's not open source. They could use Gecko, since Sun has made NS7 builds of Mozilla and NS which are both based on Gecko, and it's open-source as well.

Then there's the possibility that they might use the IE for Mac renderng engine (can't remember what it was called, Tasman?) since there are people working from Microsoft. But then there's the cross-platform code problem again.

For all we know, they could even revive and use an improved version of the HotJava engine, since there are people from Sun working on it.

Google will probably tell what's going to happen in a press release sometime soon.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax)

[DJGM]

Aside from which browser rendering engine they end up using . . . would they treat it like they
have with their somewhat exclusive GMail service, and offering it as a beta that's available by
invitation only, and then leave everyone wondering if they'll ever make it publically available?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.1) Gecko/20040707

[Don_HH2K]

Aside from which browser rendering engine they end up using . . . would they treat it like they
have with their somewhat exclusive GMail service, and offering it as a beta that's available by
invitation only, and then leave everyone wondering if they'll ever make it publically available?

I doubt they'd go that far. They may only have it on an invitation basis during its beta period, but consider this: GMail costs Google a lot of server space for each user, unless they're using some sort of ultra-compression that we don't know about. Google's browser wouldn't require them to do much else than develop it on their part, so it would probably be free.

Besides, the demand for alternative browsers is so high, why would they make it a non-public service?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax)

[FrankoSport]

Greetings ...

What's Trident? I'm a little in the dark on that one!

It used to be that Trident was a brand of sugarless gum! But now it seems that we have something entirely new to chew on - in cyber-speak terms, that is !!!

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax)

[Al]

Greetings ...

What's Trident? I'm a little in the dark on that one!

It used to be that Trident was a brand of sugarless gum! But now it seems that we have something entirely new to chew on - in cyber-speak terms, that is !!!

Trident is a evil browser code by MS. it is used by IE and it is the code name for it. Tasman is the name for MAc IE

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040910

[DJGM]

To be more precise, "Trident" is the name of the Windows/IE rendering engine, in the same way
that "Gecko" is the name of the rendering engine used in all Mozilla based browsers. "Tasman"
was the rendering engine used in IE5.x for Macintosh, a browser which had it's development
discontinued in 2003, although the engine itself continues to be developed, as it still forms
the basis of the Mac software client for the MSN internet access service.



(In case you're wondering . . . yes, I'm having to use IE to post this message, as this PC I'm
working on has been totally locked down so that unauthorised software, including real web
browsers, can't be installed on it. And they wonder where all the spyware is coming from!)

(Note by Andrew T. (27-12-2004): A number of posts in reply to this one primarily concerning the issue of whether or not Internet Explorer is obsolete have been split to this thread.)

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0)