Browser War: Extensions could Prevent Users from Switching

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The recently announced Google Chrome made me think of how many elements contribute to make a browser sticky to an user. Chrome is not available for Mac yet, but I tried it on a Windows PC and it really rocks. Fast, clean, powerful, all that confirms Google’s ownership.

That said, would I change? I’ve been a faithful user of Safari for years, but I recently switched to Firefox 3.0, even if much slower than Safari. Why? Extensions. There are many extension that add so many new functionalities to the browser which are definitely making Firefox 3 sticky to me.

Among the others, Greasmonkey, Zemanta, Kaalga, Feedly, Ubiquity, Better Gmail. Nothing similar is available for Chrome neither for Safari and I would really miss them now. They improve my productivity and the overall user experience of the browser gets much better.

All that being said, I do believe opening up the platform to make easy to develop new extensions or plugins is fundamental for making a new browser a success. Safari can be improved through AppleScripts too, there are some useful tools which makes it better, but extensions are not officially supported within the browser.

For Chrome the story is the same. I bet Google is thinking carefully about this weakness of its browser and I bet they’ll come out with something in the following months.

In conclusion, during times where browsers are becoming the new operating system where apps run, extensions can make the difference and many people used to Firefox wouldn’t switch that easily. What do you think? Will Google come out with add-ons for Chrome? Leave your comments.

UPDATE: Google Engineer just confirmed that Chrome will support addons and Gresmonkey’s developer is working with the Google Chrome team. I look forward to trying something out soon.

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Tsahi Levent-Levi

Hi Luca,

Extensions are sticky for power users. Firefox currently has a large market share because power users have pitched it to their friends. I took the step of brutally installing it for people who used IE :-)
So if power users stay with Firefox, the masses probably won't go for Chrome.
If Google comes up with a way to write extensions, and developers flock to write them, then they will probably win the market.

That said, a lot think Chrome is focusing on embedded with the list of features they have introduced. If this is the case, then extensions is not on their minds. Only time will tell.