Well, browser is market is again abuzz with activity.
Back in 2000-01 when Microsoft stopped working on the IE after it had won the browser war against Netscape, everybody thought that that's the end to the browser war. It was perceived as if there was no fresh ideas and innovation needed. IE was thrashing all the web standards apart by imposing their own extensions. IE was the undefeated king of the browser with market share of more than 90%.
Flash back to 2005, and the market statistics are different. For the first time, IE is being threatened by a host of young browsers including Firefox and Opera. Firefox has steadily snatched market share away from IE by attracting customers with its lean & mean features, support for extensions, easy to use feature and full compliancy to web standards. Opera has also started attracting quite a number of customers since its Opera 8.5 release when it did away with adware. Its evident from the number of Opera downloads, though I agree that a download doesnt mean that its really used. For the first time, IE is on the backfoot and Gates might be wondering why they abandoned working on IE.
To add to all these developments, yet one more browser called 'Flock' has thrown its hat in to the ring. Though its still in the beta/experimental phase and not publicly available for download, its already generated quite a lot of buzz in the market. Flock differentiates itself by calling itself as a Social Browser. Flock hopes to turn the browser into a dashboard for collaborating, blogging, sharing photos, reveling in a raft of other group activities that have recently caught fire online.
I have already signed up to be notified whenever the initial public release is made.
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