No matter which browser you prefer, there’s a plethora of ways to customize the way you surf the Web. There are countless plugins, extensions, toolbars and more. Some of these are easy to install while others require a little more effort.

We’ve put together a list of some of the best instructional resources for the most popular browsers today, including Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Opera and even the still wet behind the ears rookie, Google Chrome.

Internet Explorer

ie Tips - Shares a ton of quick tips for customizing Internet Explorer.

Official Browser Settings - Overview provides plenty of useful information on all of the settings for IE that most users never touch. Learn what they do and perhaps fix some problems you’ve been experiencing.

Official IE Developers Blog - Shares new tips and tricks all the time on their official blog for Internet Explorer.

Internet Explorer Toolbar - Tutorial covers what you need to know about IE’s toolbar.

Top 11 ie Add-ons - Covers a list of cool tools you can add to the IE experience.

Firefox

Customize Firefox themes - Provides a large collection of new themes for changing your Firefox look and feel.

Mozilla’s Official Way to Customize Firefox - shows undocumented features and ways to customize their browser.

How to Use GreaseMonkey - A must-read if you truly want to take your browsing to the next level.

Office Firefox Add-on Library - Contains an amazing amount of add-ons that you can install with a simple click.

Mashable’s List of 30+ Firefox Extensions - Extensions that enhance your browsing experience.

Safari

How to Customize Safari Beyond All Reason - Offers up a bunch of solutions to common annoyances with Safari as well as other cool tips. Funny title too.

How to customize the Safari Toolbar - Covers everything you need to know about the toolbar.

SafariStand - Adds dozens of extra features to the Safari browser.

eHow’s How to Customize Safari covers the basics of Safari preferences here.

YouTube video - Shows you how to customize the Safari Toolbar.

Opera

Opera Mini - How to install and configure Opera Mini for your mobile device

Official Opera Tutorials - Tutorials on how to customize the Opera browser.

Opera Widgets - Shows the best ways to customize Opera Widgets.

Extending Opera - Demonstrates several ways to get the most out of Opera.

Opera Mail Tutorial - A nice visual tutorial on the Opera Mail system.

Chrome

Google Chrome Forums - Has a tremendous amount of ways to trick out your Chrome browser

Digital Streets - Shares some cool tips for customizing your Chrome experience.

Custom Search Engines - Covers how to change the search engines in Chrome

Customized Chrome Themes - Gives you ideas on how to change Chrome’s skin.

GreaseMetal - The Chrome equivalent to Firefox’s popular GreaseMonkey.

Whether it’s just to save time or make your browser more visually appealing, there’s an amazing amount of options for any browser that you choose to use. What are some of your favorite ways to trick out your browser? Are there any unusual things you do that others might like to try? Share your secrets in the comments area.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:30+ Skins For OperaAOL Is Really, For Real Ending Netscape NavigatorVertagio Launches Social NetworkThe Daily Poll: What Was Your First Web Browser?AllPeers Launches Firefox Bundle PackageNetscape’s Final Resting PlaceGoogle Chrome: The “GBrowser” Comes to Life

MySpace has partnered with Hewlett-Packard (HP) to bring print-on-demand capability to the popular social network. That’s right. Those embarrassing photos of you Xeroxing your rear end at the office Christmas party aren’t just on your receptionist’s MySpace albums anymore. They’ll be printable so that even those who haven’t found the Internet yet can see them.

In all seriousness, this means that MySpace, home to over 4 billion images already, may fast become a hub for people looking for an easy way to share and print photos and information online. MySpace is already working with a user base that remains one of the largest in the social networking space, which means that this partnership puts both MySpace and HP at the forefront of the online print on demand market.

The partnership starts off with a simple “Click to Print” icon on MySpace blogs, comments, photos and mail. This will allow users a one click way to print from MySpace. This is where it might make some users nervous. In order for the technology to work, HP and MySpace will be “unlocking” user profile data to format for printing. What this means for users of MySpace with private profiles is that their friends will be able to print their profile photos once they are allowed to view their profile page. I’m not sure this will cause Facebook and Beacon level angst among users, but I’m thinking MySpace and HP might want to make this opt-in for those with private profiles before launch just in case.

In the meantime, this will be rolling out just in time for the holidays, scheduled for November of this year. A future phase of the roll out will include a way to print your MySpace photos on actual merchandise such as hats, mugs, and calendars. This will make gift giving easy for friends and family, but for now it is strictly print to paper. The MySpace and HP partnership will roll out the “Click to Print” feature in America, as well as parts of Australia, Canada and Western Europe.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Tabblo Inks HP Acquisition DealBebo Minicards LaunchedFlickr Adds Batch PrintingFlickr To Offer Photo Printing!Jalbum Now Offers Blurb Book CreationMySpace Photo Albums, Multi-Photo UploaderPicnik’s Latest Move to Beat Photoshop Express: Global Growth and Mouse Pads

Source:Mashable!

Want your Firefox 3 browser to be location-savvy? Mozilla is making that possible with the release of Geode, an “experimental Firefox add-on” intended as something of a holdover until Firefox 3.1 arrives with support for the W3C Geolocation Specification.

The purpose of Geode is to give current Firefox installations the option to specify location, determined through Skyhook’s Loki Wi-Fi mapping service, with varying levels of exactness, to be manually chosen by the user. If you need or want to share exact location, neighborhood or city-level information quickly, Geode makes it happen in much the same way that your standard Firefox installation would request you to save login data to a website.

If you want Geode to automatically submit broad or precise information, or, alternatively, to refuse input of such data, you can check the corresponding box adjacent to the four primary options available. Mozilla states that Skyhook Loki enables Geode users to pinpoint their locations between 10 and 20 meters.

Users not fond of the Wi-Fi-based system that Geode is built to tap will have to wait for Firefox 3.1 to present itself in order to quickly manage Web-based location services through GPS devices. But those in settings home to Wi-Fi signals aplenty will be off to a solid start with the Geode plugin.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Firefox 2 Security Fixes Released400 Million Firefox DownloadsMozilla: Would You Like a Virus With That Add-on?Firefox Now Officially Hates MeHelp Find Memory Leaks in FirefoxROCK YOUR FIREFOX: Firefox Launches Facebook Application14,000 Changes In New Firefox, But We Only Want One

The “green” incarnation of travel, called ecotourism, mandates that travelers minimize cultural, economic, and environmental impacts as much as possible to promote sustainability. But while there are thousands of hotels worldwide that promote themselves as “green”, many of them are only partially fulfilling these requirements - they might not be wasting energy, but are paying locals at near-slave wages, or funneling money out of the local economy.

Whole Travel, a new site that launches tonight, is looking to keep these hotels honest while promoting the concept of sustainable travel. The site assigns each hotel with a score based on its environmental, cultural, and economic impacts, as well as its “customer interaction”, or how well it teaches visitors about the issues that affect their destination.Source:TechCrunch

eBay launched a new browser extension tool today that lets you highlight different products in Firefox or Internet Explorer and compare the pricing of those products on eBay. The tool also includes Skype functionality, which will let you click on a number in your browser and call it directly via Skype.

Dubbed Browser Highlighter, eBay’s latest tool will run only on Windows machines for now, but will eventually be rolled out for Macs and Apple’s Safari browser in the coming weeks.

After installing Browser Highlighter, a small icon is placed to the right of the address bar in Firefox or Internet Explorer. When you click the icon, you have the option of turning the “Compare on eBay” function, as well as the “Skype Phone Number Recognition” tool on or off. When either one or both are turned on, the information you search for in the browser becomes an interactive space to compare the price of products on eBay or make phone calls with Skype.

Fuser has just launched a major update to their email aggregation service. This evening, members were introduced to the new and improved Fuser, which sports a fresh look and feel.

The welcome page is the first sign that things have changed for Fuser members. There’s an entirely different design, which visually explains what the services does: Aggregation of email, social networking messages, and even Twitter messages.

By far, though, the biggest change besides the user interface is the performance, which has been sometimes sluggish because of the intense processing that’s required for connecting to so many different services at one time. They’ve redesigned the entire backend to vastly improve the speed and stability of their service.

For the purpose of this review, we set up several different accounts in order to test the new service, with something an average user would actually use. For example, accounts for Gmail, Yahoo mail and Hotmail, as well as MySpace and Facebook.

Once you’re logged into the new Fuser you’ll see an entirely different inbox setup. There’s a tabbed navigation system for access to email and Twitter messages. Here’s a glimpse:

Notice the checkboxes next to each service under the Add/Edit Accounts tab. That’s the new way to filter which messages you want to appear in your universal inbox. For example, because all of the checkboxes are enabled, all emails and social networking messages will appear in my inbox.

As for those that prefer to view their Gmail messages in the normal threaded display, Fuser has ensured that you still have the option to do so. It will open a new tab to the right and show Gmail emails in the usual manner. Here’s a brief screencast that demonstrates this.

There’s also a handy option to filter which messages you want to view for each social networking service. For example, for MySpace you can choose to read all messages, comments and bulletins, or whichever ones you want. As for Facebook, you have options for messages as well as wall posts.

The email reading and composition tab area is also improved. Besides the general tab for reading all messages, there will be other tabs for each mail system. For example, Gmail’s mail tab will display all emails in the familiar threaded method while Yahoo, Hotmail and others systems will appear as they do on their systems.

At the top right side of the new home screen is the control box. This provides access to several key areas on Fuser.  The first one being your Account preferences. The envelope icon goes to your inbox, the dialogue icon lets you share feedback with the Fuser team. Next is the community icon, which provides access to the Forum, Blog and a new video help center that contains useful screencasts such as the one above about threaded messages. The last two are for searching and logging off.

Here’s a list of all the different email and social networks that Fuser supports at this point in time. They plan to add many more services as members request them.

It’s taken a long time for Fuser to release this update, but judging from initial testing it appears that it’s well worth the wait. The performance is vastly improved and the new interface makes it easier to navigate and control all of your different messaging systems. Being able to quickly filter messages is an important feature. So, it appears Fuser is the ideal service for anyone that wants to consolidate all of their messages from email accounts, Facebook and MySpace and even Twitter.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Fuser is Now A Serial Killer, with MySpace ApplicationFuser’s MySpace Killer Just Got MeanerFuser Launches a MySpace Killer; On FacebookFuser Offers More Social Network Integration for Aggregation ServiceFuser Consolidates Your Email and Social Networking MessagesFuser Adds Twitter SupportFuser to Launch Email Aggregating Service

Source:Mashable!

Richard Stallman is going berserk over cloud computing. In an interview with the Guardian, he claims that the whole thing is “stupidity.” He claims that “you should not use web applications to do your computing,” because it’s “just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else’s web server, you’re defenceless. You’re putty in the hands of whoever developed that software.”

It seems to me he’s talking about web applications and not cloud computing, which is not entirely the same thing, but nevertheless the sad thing about it is the fact that…

…he’s right. Well, partially.

Yup, it’s not smart to use Gmail. Adam discussed the problem of being addicted to Google’s apps and services length in the past. From a privacy point of view, it’s not smart to leave your personal data on Facebook, either. It’s definitely not smart to do your business online on a bunch of free apps which perhaps don’t really guarantee that your data is safe or - which is a much bigger problem in the startup world today - that they will exist in a year or two.

The problem, however, is that Stallman doesn’t realize that some web apps are not easily replicable as desktop open source applications. Give me an open source desktop version of Facebook, and I’ll use it, but it simply doesn’t exist. It’s a common error; many IT geeks and diehards are used to using a relatively limited set of applications and something along the lines of MySpace or perhaps Netvibes seems like a toy or a complete waste of time. Well, it isn’t: these apps are used by millions and mose of them wouldn’t trade it for the world, and like it or not, there’s simply no open source alternative.

Furthermore, not all web applications are created equal. For example, I regularly backup all my feeds in Netvibes into a nifty OPML file. If Netvibes ever goes out of business or turns into crap, I have pretty much all the data I need and I can easily move to another, similar service. I don’t really feel like the folks over at Netvibes are keeping me hostage; not more than any open source, desktop application could do.

Of course, if you’re really serious about your privacy, you’ll probably stay away from web apps and do as Stallman advises. But you can’t call everyone else stupid simply because they’re using web apps; there are many flavors of web apps and many different ways to use them, and while I wouldn’t advise anyone to go head first and give all their private/sensitive data away without backuping it, I definitely cannot say that web applications should be avoided at all cost. As always, it’s a matter of making an informed decision and knowing all the upsides as well as the downsides.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Old Ideas With a New Coat of PaintMosso Updates Pricing Structure; A Better Model for Cloud Computing?Nirvanix Offers 30 Day “Fee Holiday” to Lure Amazon S3 CustomersToolgether to Launch Marketplace for Stand Alone AppsOffline Google Docs Access DeployedGood and EvilYahoo’s Supercomputing Initiative Running Hadoop

Source:Mashable!

Gmail turned online email on its ear when it popped up a few years back.  Naturally, there are more than just a few Gmail extensions for Firefox for an improved user experience. Want a more dynamic signature?  How about the ability to open multiple Gmail accounts at once in the same browser?  What about the chance to write your emails from right to left? All of these and more are available via these 13 Gmail extensions.

As with any list of Firefox tools, please do not install all of these at once unless you’d like to slow down your browser.

Better Gmail 2 - A Firefox extension that combines some of the most popular Greasmonkey scripts for Gmail into an easy to install extension. You can control which ones are operating by use of a simple checkbox interface.

Blank Canvas - Lets you create multiple HTML signatures that are inserted where you choose in your emails.

Email This! Bookmarklet Extension - Will send your chosen recipient the link, title, & highlighted text of the page you are currently viewing. Will work with multiple emails such as Yahoo and stand-alone clients, but is focused on Gmail (as if you couldn’t tell from their logo).

Gmail Checker - Will allow you to check for new emails on traditional Gmail accounts and Google Apps accounts.

Gmail Manager - Beyond just giving you a visual and audio notification that you have new email, it will also allow you to log in to multiple Gmail accounts at once from the same browser. For more solutions to the multiple login problem, see Stan Schroeder’s “5 Ways To Log Into Several Gmail Accounts at the Same Time”.

Gmail Notifier - Allows you to keep an eye on multiple Gmail accounts as well as hosted domain accounts.

Gmail RTL - Adds the ability to write from right to left in Gmail, which is only offered in the Hebrew and Arabic versions of the service.

Gmail S/MIME - Allows you to send and receive S/MIME encrypted messages via your Gmail system.

Gspace - Have oodles of unused space in your disk quota on your Gmail account? Why not turn it into a virtual storage facility for files?

GTDInbox - GTDInbox turns your Gmail inbox into an organizational tool, allowing you easy integration between your mail and projects you are working on.

WebMail Notifier - While WebMail Notifier is not exclusively a Gmail extension, it is still an easy way to receive notifications of when you’ve received new emails.

WiseStamp - Allows you to create a much more dynamic signature for your Gmail accounts that will show off your social networking links, IM names and more. Can also set up business and personal signatures if you choose. See our previous review of WiseStamp here.

Xoopit - Xoopit will modify your Gmail search so that you can search your attachments, pictures and videos as well as the emails themselves. You can also add comments to pictures and pass them on to your blog or Facebook.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Gmail To Get Themes Support?Mozilla to Go Mobile, Launch Firefox for Cell PhonesNew Del.icio.us Add-on Released, Jives With Firefox 3Firefox Campus Edition Launches5 Ways To Log Into Several Gmail Accounts At The Same TimeFirefox is Dead, Long Live Opera?5 Extreme Gmail Makeovers

There are less than 10 days left to send your submission to the Boss Mashable Challenge to win either the $2,000 Grand Prize or the $1,000 runner-up prize. We’ve received many submissions so far and will continue to showcase the best of the best on Mashable until the September 28th Deadline. Three submissions that will definitely be making it into the voting round are: Tall Street, BooYarr and Buzka.

How do you win? Build a kickass mashup – search engine or any other Web app – using the BOSS API and any other data sources/technologies.

This Week’s Showcase:

Tall Street Logo

Screenshot:

tallstreet-screenshot

100 word description from developer: “Tall Street is a new search engine concept where you get to rank the results. If you become a member of our community you become a trader on our directory where you get to play the search results like a stock market. This means you make investments (with fake money) on sites belonging to certain keywords, if when people search those keywords they find the sites you have invested in useful, you earn more money to further invest. If people don’t find your sites useful then you lose money.”

Screenshot:

100 Word description from developer: “BooYarr aims to make search easier by improving access to the search functionality and by, more importantly, improving the process of navigating through the results.

BooYarr works by having all the search functionality, e.g. web, news, etc. kept inside the browser sidebar, even the results are displayed in the sidebar. This means it takes significantly less time to conduct a search and you don’t have to load whole pages in the browser window just to do a search. When we built BooYarr we also needed to ensure that it was easier to access the BooYarr sidebar than it is to use a toolbar or search bar, what we came up with was a bunch of shortcuts both keyboard and mouse.”

Screenshot:

100 word description from developer: “Buzka is a social web application that helps friends to share and organize favorites on the web. It’s the easiest way to share and save a link by using just one Buzka Button. Favorites shared with the Buzka Button are saved and organized into folders which users can sort and publish on the web. Buzka gives friends a way to browse, organize and search each other’s favorites and is a great way to collaborate and share knowledge - for work and play. BOSS search has been used to give users highly relevant content matching keywords within the context of nested folders.”

That’s it for this week. Less than 10 days left, so submit as soon as you are ready. If you are not developing for this contest, what are your thoughts on the submissions showcased above?

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Announcing the Yahoo! Search BOSS Mashable Challenge ($3,000 in prizes)The BOSS Mashable ChallengeTall StreetBuzkaMashable Sponsors Spigit’s Entrepreneur ChallengeBooYarrThe Spokeo Challenge: Don’t Like the Site, Get $5

Source:Mashable!

Google Reader is a great service, but it would be nice to know when you have new unread items as opposed to always going to the tab, or being disappointed to find out it’s only your least favorite feed that’s been updated.  There are numerous Firefox extensions that can help you with these issues, and even help you to continue the discussion on the original blog depending on the commenting system they have installed.

As with any list of Firefox tools, please do not install all of these at once unless you’d like to slow down your browser. And, honestly, how many notifications do you need to show you that you have unread items in Reader?

AideRSS - Brings AideRSS to your Google Reader, allowing you to see ranks directly in your reader, as well as letting you group feeds by rank. Also allows you to add your own thoughts on each feed.

Better GReader - Combines several Greasemonkey scripts in one extension. Includes things such as skipping the iGoogle choice page, the ability to preview the item as it appears on the actual Web page, shows the favicon for each feed, and several other choices.

Feedly - While actually a start page extension, Feedly will monitor your Google Reader activities to deliver what appears to be your most important news so that you can always keep up with what is most important to you.  You can read a more in-depth review by Alana Taylor here on Mashable.

Google Reader Notifier - Shows you how many unread items there are, provides an itemized list, lets you customize where the information appears in your browser, different icon sets, and more.

Google Reader Toolkit - A straightforward extension that adds an icon to your status bar that shows you how many unread items you have, and can open Reader for you.

Google Reader Watcher - Based on a Greasemonkey script by the same author, Google Reader Watcher will check your account at an interval you set and will show you how many unread items you have. It can show this broken down by feed and more.

gReader Comments - If a blog has Disqus installed, you can continue the conversation in Google Reader with this extension.

IntenseDebate in Google Reader - This plugin will add a link to each item in your Google Reader to allow you to post comments directly to IntenseDebate.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Google Reader Gets Search!Google Reader Graduates, Launches International VersionsOffline Google Docs Access DeployedDelicious Sidebar for IE is Here. Almost as Cool as Firefox.Firefox Extension Contest is On & Poppin’New Google Reader for iPhone: Still Neat, Not Very SocialMozilla to Go Mobile, Launch Firefox for Cell Phones

At one time, it was tough to cover your tracks after visiting some, uh, questionable sites, but now it’s getting easier than ever. According to Mozilla, Firefox is joining Safari, Internet Explorer 8, and Google Chrome in providing its users with a “private mode” that will not collect any of your browsing history or cookies in the upcoming release of Firefox 3.1.

Much like Chrome, users will be able to open a separate window in Firefox 3.1 that will let them browse the Web in any way they see fit without worrying about the wife or kids entering the History menu and seeing why they spent the last hour in the office with the door locked.

While Google Maps is an awesome application, it has its limits and can sometimes be a pain in the behind to transfer addresses to from other websites.  Luckily, there are a slew of Firefox extensions that can help you turn Google Maps into an even more powerful tool.

As we always warn you with any list of Firefox tools, please do not install all of these at once unless you’d like to slow down your browser.

Advanced URL Builder - Lets you set the first part of a URL, such as Google Maps, and then you just highlight a zip/postal code, right click and choose Google Maps to be shown that location.

BlueOrganizer - An extension capable of reading the information contained in a page, such as an address. It automatically pulls up tools like Google Maps to help you find locations.

GDirections - Allows you to set various home addresses in memory, and then you can highlight an address, right click to select which address to begin with, and it will bring up the driving directions from the mapping service of your choice.

iPhoneSender - Right click on a Google Map and you can send a properly formatted link to your iPhone via email for easy access on the go.

Locator - Highlight an address on a Web site, right click with your mouse and choose “locate on Google Map” to be taken directly to Google Maps and shown the location.

Map This - Merges the features of a few mapping extensions in that you can highlight the address on a page to see where it is and you can also get driving directions by the same method if you choose.

Minimap Sidebar - Numerous features for mapping including drag-and-drop of addresses into the sidebar, reads geotags and has an amazing laundry list of other mapping tools.  This extension was the Grand Prize Winner in the Extend Firefox 2 Contest.

PackageMapping.com Extension - While more of a Google Maps mashup, this one is great for people who do a lot of online shopping and want to see a graphical representation of where exactly their packages are.

Pre Trip Planner for your Navigation System - Adds a link to Google Maps that allows you to plot a course for a trip and then export it to your navigational system.

Select-n-Go by Cleeki - Allows you to highlight text in a page and then choose the search engine to plug it into, including Google Maps.

—Related Articles at Mashable - All That’s New on the Web:Google Maps Now Support hCard MicroformatsGoogle Maps Hangs Up on Click-to-CallGoogle Offers Easy Embed Code for MapsCustom Icons for Google MapsMaptacular! 7 Google Maps Tools For FirefoxGoogle Maps in (Almost) 3DGoogle Reader Gets Search!

Google Chrome has been grabbing the tech world’s attention for a few days now, and its impact on the market is showing to be significant. Massively significant. Permanently significant. That goes for everything from conceptual execution to the download count. According to Hitslink Market Share, it’s already grabbed north of 1% of the browser market. And Hitwise shows Google’s Chrome page to be nearing the top 10 of sites offering software downloads of any kind.

Big news? Yes indeed. And the reason for this is entirely evident. The blog world has been frenzied for the last 72 hours over this, and it’s been channeled through all the big media outlets, including print, television, Web. That’s on a global scale. So of course the number of downloads will be high. And the barrel of fodder is far from empty, so I imagine this boomer of a browser is going to climb a good bit higher still. The trend says so.

The question to ask, though, is just how high will it go? Is it going grow so large as to eat others’ shares of the market? Is it going to be a Red Alert phase at Mozilla for the foreseeable future? Will IE decline further? What about the bottom feeders, Opera, Safari, et al.?

In short, the answers are: pretty high; yes; yes; yes; those’ll budge a little. Indeed, Chrome is that big. It will be, anyway.

Let’s look sensibly at the situation here. Chrome was released to a resounding applause. Everyone’s voiced pros and cons, more the first than the second. And it hasn’t even had time to make itself feel briefly at home on the Mac OS X. Not to say that Mac adoption will draw enormous oohs and aahs, but OS X users tend to be a more tech savvy bunch. More in tune with the ways of this progressive chaos we show such love for. I count myself part of that club. And they’ll download in great numbers as well, and you can bet that those numbers to come will bump Chrome up even further. The biggest loser in that case will presumably be Safari, which, despite its conveniences, is hardly the force that Firefox has become.

Now, in Firefox’s case, it’s a far more complex picture. I dare say Mozilla isn’t very happy with Chrome’s release, because it can only slow the rate of Firefox 3 downloads. And Mozilla is very much about growth at this point. It has been for some time. It saw that, given the right amount of noise at the grassroots, it could yoink some pie from MSFT. And more and more. The record set for browser downloads in June only furthered its advantage. And now Google comes along, promising something open source as well, with some core aspects that surely make folks at the Foundation envious, if not a bit sour. Mozilla will continue, no doubt. But it sees that it isn’t the only slick magician in town, and having to compete while watching its own tail isn’t something it’s really very used to. Sure, Mozilla thinks the IE team has moved forward a bit with its feature set, but it can’t seriously think that what Microsoft offers is really so cool. Mozilla is the bad-ass benchmark. Now Google has stolen some of that hard-earned thunder. Even though Google has done so completely legitimately.

It’s true, Google says it’s not out to conquer. It’s lending a helping hand. So everyone is better off. But as with anything it’s done as good or better than other big-name Internet companies, once it tastes success, it cannot help but add fuel to the fire. And add fuel it will. Enough Web users will be happy to try something “better,” “more convenient,” “more reliable,” “safer,” even though the gauges for such metrics are hugely subjective and vary case-by-case, that the company will see that 1% climb to 2%. And well beyond, I think. No, not to the point of surpassing IE. But a low double-digit it will be. Give it 12-24 months, and see how the field looks then.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Google Chrome: The “GBrowser” Comes to LifeGoogle Chrome a Killer Browser Already (screencast)7 Really Awesome Things About Google ChromeChrome is Not a Windows-KillerGoogle Growth In Europe Outpacing The USGoogle Mobile Apps Reverse Summer Slump TrendsRumor: Google to Buy Sirius?