> Google wanted to raise the game by fast-tracking browser innovation and enabling development of next-gen web-apps, and they have. We're not there yet. The un

> Google wanted to raise the game by fast-tracking browser innovation and enabling development of next-gen web-apps, and they have. We're not there yet. The underlying promise of the browser as application client is still largely unfulfilled. And mainstream adoption of emerging web standards is still hampered by 'patchy browser support' (read: IE8/7). > CSS3/HTML5, canvas, etc. Compared to the state-of-the-art, these emerging standards are fairly unambitious, as they need to be given the history of browser development. For Microsoft to support these things is a no-brainer because as exciting as they seem to web devs, the open web as software platform is a weak competitor. > Would the IE team have finally knuckled under to pressure to improve standards compliance in IE without Chrome? Very hard to say. But it's clear that the vanguard in the market share war against IE dominance is held by Mozilla, not Google, and they deserve a lot of credit for how far we've come (lower than 50% share for IE now in most Western countries). > The fact that the Chrome team has been able to put out a top-notch browser that continues to gain market share hand over fist is just a side benefit. While I agree that Google often successfully pursues a strategy of leveraging a small but critical market share in order to change markets rather than dominate them, it was the focused and determined cooperation of all the members of the WHAT WG that rescued web standards. Nothing less would have worked. Now that those members are increasingly at odds with each other, Google may start to find it needs to compete head to head with Mozilla in market share in order to get its ideas adopted. Anyway, I love using Chrome even more than I loved using Opera before it. Congrats to the Chromium team on the milestone.