【英语科技】谷歌Chrome重燃浏览器市场战火

Several years ago the Firefox Web browser brought serious competition back to Web browsers, a market then overwhelmingly dominated by Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer. Now Google Inc. is shaking up the browser market again.

Google's Chrome Web browser reached 7.24% of the world-wide browser market in June and is the fastest-growing program for surfing the Web, according to data from NetApplications.com, which tracks Web usage. Google says Chrome had more than 70 million active users in May, up from 30 million in June 2009.

Google's new No. 3 position in browsers has added to the company's clout in defining technical standards that shape Web sites and funneling Web surfers to its Internet search engine.

'The browser matters because of its ability to drive access to other assets,' says Sheri McLeish, an analyst at Forrester Research.

Google's determination to gain a foothold in the market shows how browsers are again becoming an important battleground as more software development shifts to the Web from applications anchored to personal-computer operating systems like Windows and Macintosh.

Google is trying to nudge the shift even further with a new operating system called Chrome OS that is derived from its browser and designed to run only Web-based software. Chrome OS laptop computers are expected to come out from Google hardware partners this fall. 'When the Web gets better, Google tends to benefit,' says Sundar Pichai, vice president of product development at Google.

The browser war of the late 1990s between Microsoft and Netscape Communications Corp. was the first great competitive struggle of the Internet era, ending in a bruising series of antitrust court battles for Microsoft and the fading of Netscape into oblivion. Microsoft's Internet Explorer emerged from that battle with a share of the browser market that once exceeded 90% until Firefox came along.

Firefox is an open-source browser built with contributions from volunteer programmers overseen by the Mozilla Foundation, a nonprofit group descended from an organization created by Netscape in the late '90s. It found a receptive audience, partly because of the proliferation of malicious code that exploited security vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer.

Many consumers viewed Firefox as a more innovative and secure alternative, helping the software take the No. 2 position. Usage of the browser peaked at 24.7% in November, but had slid to 23.8% by June, according to NetApplications.

几年前，在浏览器市场被微软(Microsoft Corp.)的IE浏览器牢牢主宰之际，Firefox网络浏览器的出现为这个市场带回了激烈的竞争。如今，谷歌公司(Google Inc.)又开始撼动这个市场。

跟踪网络使用量的NetApplications.com 网站数据显示，6月，谷歌公司的Chrome网络浏览器占据了全球浏览器市场7.24%的市场份额，并成为增长最快的网络浏览器程序。谷歌公司说，今年5月，Chrome拥有超过7,000万名活跃用户，而2009年6月仅有3,000万。

浏览器市场季军的排名加强了谷歌在定义网站技术标准和引导浏览网络者使用其互联网搜索引擎方面的影响力。

市场研究公司Forrester Research的分析师麦克莱什(Sheri McLeish)说，浏览器能够推动对其它资源的接入，因而关系重大。

随着软件开发越来越多地从基于Windows和Macintosh等个人电脑操作系统的应用软件转向基于网络的软件，谷歌公司欲在浏览器市场立足的决心表明浏览器市场再次成为十分重要的战场。

为了试图进一步推动这一转变，谷歌公司还推出了新的操作系统──Chrome OS。这款操作系统源于它的浏览器且只能运行基于网络的软件。今年秋季，预计谷歌的硬件合作伙伴将推出基于Chrome OS的笔记本电脑。谷歌公司负责产品开发的副总裁皮采(Sundar Pichai)说，网络发展的越好，谷歌获益的可能性就越大。

上世纪90年代末微软公司与网景公司(Netscape Communications Corp.)之间的浏览器大战堪称互联网时代首次重要的竞争性战争。这场大战以在法庭上对微软发起一系列杀伤性极强的反垄断诉讼以及网景逐步退出人们的视线而告终。微软IE浏览器从战场上崛起，在Firefox出现之前，它曾一度取得90%以上市场份额。

Firefox是一款开源浏览器，在Mozilla基金会(Mozilla Foundation)的监督下，由程序员自愿贡献程序代码。Mozilla基金会是一个非盈利组织，由网景在90年代末创建的机构演变而成。在一定程度上，用户接受Firefox是因为出现了大量利用IE安全弱点编写的恶意代码。

许多消费者认为Firefox是一个创新性更强、更安全的选择。这种观点帮助这款软件占据了浏览器市场亚军的宝座。NetApplications数据显示，去年11月Firefox市场占有率达24.7%，为历史最高点，今年6月，其份额下滑至23.8%。