Firefox isn't going anywhere. There have been suggestions that Chrome is an attack on Firefox, but while I'm looking forward to some friendly competition, I haven't seen anything that suggests that Google is trying to replace or undermine Firefox.

Both browsers have the same goals -- to improve the web, and to shake Microsoft's dominance -- and working together is in both their interests.

It's true that Firefox derives its funding largely from Google, as a result of users running Google searches through the browser, but this is not under threat.

That deal was recently extended through to 2011, and as long as Firefox continues to drive users to Google's site, I can't see why Google would want to cancel it.

Google owes debt to Firefox

Building a new browser is a monumental effort, and I wonder if even Google could have done it all on its own. Chrome has a lot of new code of course, and Google should be congratulated for releasing so much of its own work as open-source, but it also owes open-source a great debt.

Various bits of Firefox code have found their way in to Chrome, and the rendering engine, WebKit, was originally derived from KDE's Konqueror browser.

Firefox developers aren't twiddling their thumbs

The first benefit for Linux users is obvious: if Chrome lives up to its promises, and I don't doubt that it will, then it will bring faster, more efficient, and more secure browsing to Linux.

Even if you don't make the switch to Chrome, its existence should improve everyone's browsing experience. The Firefox developers certainly won't be sitting back and watching Chrome sweep up its market share -- just a couple of weeks ago, Firefox announced sweeping JavaScript optimisations, set for inclusion in Firefox 3.1, that boost JavaScript performance by up to 40 times, and I'm sure these efforts will only intensify.

In fact, since Chrome will be open-source, there should be nothing stopping Firefox, or any other project for that matter, incorporating advancements from Chrome in to their own applications.

Building better applications

Google's motivation for creating Chrome is clear -- for a long time it has been pushing the boundaries of web-based applications, with Chrome, it's pushing the boundaries on the browser itself.

Its minimal user interface does a great job of letting you focus on the web applications you're running, rather than the browser you're running them in.

Google's all-new JavaScript engine, called V8, is also key, with the new levels of performance it provides giving web developers greater flexibility.

We're already seeing the world become more platform-agnostic, with web-based applications eroding the need for Windows on the desktop. If Chrome enables web developers to tackle new kinds of applications, more and more apps will move to the web, lowering the barrier to entry for potential Linux users.

So what does Chrome mean for Linux?

The current Google Chrome beta is Windows-only, but that shouldn't be taken as any indication of Google's overall intentions for the project -- a Linux port is on the way, and if Chrome has the impact that Google is aiming for, it promises to be a very positive thing for Linux.

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