With Google’s Chrome Web Store in defence and Development Tools on offense, browser war is not over
Google is supplying its best artillery to the Chrome apps developers’ community and it is not showing any sign of surrender in the browser wars of the century.
While it’s rival Internet Explorer (IE) is still in excellent control of more than half of the battle ground (claiming 58.18% of market share as of January ‘15), Google seems to keep on firing its hidden weaponry straight from the bunker (from 22.65% in December ’14 to 23.54% in January ‘15). Data Source: NetMarketShare
What’s up for Google?
Well, let’s examine their frontline of defence before I make my bold prediction. The Chrome app store is flooded with great web apps and certainly there’s more coming-in over the coming months.
Chrome Web Store
If you visit the Chrome Web Store now, you’ll be drowned not only with web apps, but also with this battalion of extensions and themes. It’s an intuitive and powerful base camp.
You can choose between two types of apps - Chrome Apps or Websites. Apps available in both types are further grouped into four distinct features namely Runs Offline, By Google, Free and Available for Android.
With Extensions, the same feature grouping as with Apps will drastically invite you to make a selection.
With Themes, you’ll be asked to just choose and download. No pressure at all from the commanders.
Clicking any item will bring you to the download page and from there, you’ll be introduced to the app overview, reviews, support and related apps suggested by Google. You can rate the app, share it on Google+ and instantly add it on your Chrome browser.
It seems that Google is really attracting lots of app sellers nowadays.
This time, let’s audit the offensive backend.
Developer Dashboard
The fastest route to the hangar is under the Settings icon in web store. There’s a link to the Developer Dashboard - another interesting topic to talk about. Here are the two tools for you Google app developers.
Chrome Dev Editor (CDE)
This app is available for free download at the Chrome Web Store. Chrome Dev Editor is a developer tool for building apps on the Chrome platform.
Google is soon to launch another warhead using CADT.
Chrome App Developer Tool for Mobile (CADT)
CADT is a tool for mobile development device that tests code by pushing Chrome app assets to your mobile device. CADT is being used in the Chrome Apps for Mobile project which is based on Apache Cordova, an open-source mobile development framework for building native mobile apps using HTML, CSS and JavaScript. This project is set to run your Chrome apps on both Android and iOS platforms.
More Resources for Developers
Expert and beginner developers can visit the Chrome Developer site for more information about DevTools, Multi-Device, and Platform.
Google Developer site, on the other hand, keeps developers updated on the latest Google products, technologies in game development, monetization APIs, technology for mobile, developer platforms and open-source technologies for start-ups, and best practices for modern development.
Who will win the war?
We’re seeing a lot of reviews for mobile apps and web apps and extensions available at Google Play and Chrome Web Store. Inch by inch, Google is moving away from Safari (currently with 11.9% share). Though Internet Explorer is still too far to be reached even by Google’s best rocket launcher, the market share trend, as shown in NetMarketShare’s latest report, indicates that Chrome is heading towards IE’s present position. On when it will happen, it’s hard to tell by now.
The bottom line is that with developers establishing good momentum with using Google development tools as well as the Web Store, there is a clear sign that the browser war is not over yet for Google.
