Mozilla, makers of the Firefox browser, has reacted positively to the news that Google is to launch its own browser, Chrome.

Google Chrome beta: a first look

The company welcomed the additional competition to an already crowded market, which is currently dominated by Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8.

"Competition often results in innovation of one sort or another — in the browser market you can see that this is true in spades this year. I'd expect that to continue now that Google has thrown their hat in the ring," said Mozilla's John Lilly.

Analyst David Card of Jupiter Research thought that Mozilla might be holding its tongue for now.

"It doesn't immediately add much value to a web-browsing experience for the masses. Wonder how the Mozilla folks think about Google doing no evil?" Card said.

Microsoft was confident that surfers would opt for Internet Explorer over Chrome.

Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of Internet Explorer, said: "People will choose Internet Explorer 8 for the way it puts the services they want right at their fingertips, respects their personal choices about how they want to browse and, more than any other browsing technology, puts them in control of their personal data online".

Recent figures from NetApplications suggest that Microsoft has 72 per cent of the market, with Mozilla holding just under 20 per cent.

Additionally, Opera and Apple's Safari compete in the market though have a relatively small user base.

However, Google currently dominate the search market and its ubiquity could lead to a fast take up of Chrome.

Will you be using Google's Chrome to surf the net? Let us know in the Web User forums.

Download Google Chrome: www.google.com/chrome

www.mozilla.org
www.microsoft.com/ie8
www.netapplications.com

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