With the feature set of WebKit + Gears + faster Javascript, as a developer, I'm much more likely to write apps against this platform. I am thinking specifically

With the feature set of WebKit + Gears + faster Javascript, as a developer, I'm much more likely to write apps against this platform. I am thinking specifically of distributing the Chrome browser with my app: User goes to the site and already has Chrome. My site automatically detects that, and they can download my Gears app. User goes to the site and has Firefox. My site detects that and gives them an option of the "lite" and the "full" version of my Gears app. The "full" version just happens to come with an install of the Chrome. User goes to the site and has IE. My site detects that and gives them the download link to my app that comes with a Chrome installer. In all three cases, I get what I want -- users use my app, and preferably running on a platform that runs fast enough. If I'm targeting "mom and pop", I doubt they'd notice that it happens to come with Chrome. Because I can write a Gears app that doesn't have the URL links or the menu links, as far as the user is concerned, they are simply running my app. I can easily see Google pushing an "office suite", which simply consists of a gears version of Gmail, GDoc, etc. Personally, I liked Firefox 1 and 1.5. I thought Firefox 2 was horrible, and all the IEs worse. When Firefox 3 release candidates came out, I switched to it immediately. Reading through those feature lists, as soon as Chrome is available for Linux, I'm getting a copy of it. Maybe I won't have to keep disabling Javascript by default with Chrome.