No Thanks, I'm Just Browsing

Google are bringing out their own browser, I've been informed by some work colleagues today. No doubt it will be a slick piece of kit when it appears in its final version but I boldly predict it will make little impact initially. The reason for this is quite simply that Internet Explorer is here to stay for a long time yet. I realise the irony of me saying this from a Firefox window but my reasoning is simple. A large number of the web-browsing community are still of the "Hit the 'e' symbol to make the web appear" variety.

Is that patronising? Yes, probably highly. Is it true? Just now, yes. I know a number of people who are just about tech-savvy. By this I mean they can go online, send e-mails, do the VoIP thing, install software, sync iPods and what have you. Some of them have not upgraded their version of Internet Explorer ever (just using whatever version was bundled with Windows 95, 98, XP, Vista, whatever) and would be unaware there are other web browsers out there. The obvious exception here are Mac users but the more partisan are usually throwing too much scorn upon anything Microsoft to care or notice much outside Safari (I realise I'm generalising quite massively here, before any of the numerous Mac users I know berate me - I feel like a minority these days.).

Naturally this will change over time due to various things such as people becoming more aware of the likes of Firefox, Opera, Safari-for-Windows and as Microsoft are prevented from bundling IE with new Windows releases. In the meantime, however, it will remain dominant and I expect Google Chrome to make very little initial impact unless it is truly revolutionary - which I doubt. For the majority of folk, there are only so many ways to look at a web page and Internet Explorer does just fine for over 70% of the web population and will continue to.

EDIT Sept. 4th: Apparently it's taken 1 or 2% (depending on sources) market share in two days - shows what I know I suppose!