Although I agree with your reasons for Picasa being brought out when it was, it is hardly “the most minor of updates”. The integration of Google Maps for geotagging is worth the download in itself, but the face recognition is a huge leap for free software.

“Why? Because … Google wants to show off that it has the fastest engine.”

Uh, no, I don’t think that’s why. A significant percentage of people will only use IE (don’t want to change what they know, corporate policy dictates, etc.). It is in Google’s interest for everyone to be running standards-compliant feature-rich browsers, so they can make their web sites more featureful and attract even more users. Microsoft’s interest to direct users to their own technologies. For example, will Microsoft ever support SVG? Not unless they’re forced to. They want to push their own proprietary Silverlight. By releasing this plugin, Google has a way to make fancy SVG websites and tell IE users “you can keep using IE, just install this plugin”.

The whole changing default search engines thing is unncessary and dirty.
Not that I like Microsoft’s defaults, but its a shame to see Google going down the same path.

Did Microsoft pay Barry Collins to write this blog post?

Google has a “monopoly-sized” search market share?

Hah! Microsoft actually had a monopoly on the browser market, and they are now being forced to provide alternatives to IE. Google’s search market share is actually less than Microsoft’s browser market share, but you don’t accuse Microsoft of having a monopoly.

Furthermore, Google provided a optional add-on to add features lacking in IE. You don’t have to install it if you don’t like it, but don’t blame Google for providing a add-on that could actually help people stuck with IE for one reason or another.

Microsoft will never be the underdog or the good guy Barry, no matter how many press releases you write for them.

Toby – I stand corrected on Picasa/Picasa Web Albums.

egreen – I’m not defending Microsoft. But nobody wants to see Google adopting equally suspect tactics.

There is an option to change the IE default search to Google in the Picasa 3.5 installer, along with options like adding desktop and quicklaunch shortcuts etc, which is selected by default. Simply deselect it and Picasa doesn’t change IE.

There are addons to use the IE rendering engine inside Firefox. Nobody seems to be complaining about this.

I am sure Google are trying to promote their products. They are a business. All businesses do this.

@egreen
“Google’s search market share is actually less than Microsoft’s browser market share, but you don’t accuse Microsoft of having a monopoly.” What? Last time I looked Google’s market share was over 90%, IE about 66% and declining…

@Nathan Kidd
“…will Microsoft ever support SVG? Not unless they’re forced to. They want to push their own proprietary Silverlight.” Strangely, SVG was based partly on Microsoft VML. I think Silverlight is primarily competing against Adobe’s Flash monopoly.

Of course this may make more sense when the other foot falls …

Maybe Google intends to withdraw support for IE6 on its own websites – which of course will already have the required Chrome Tag. When corporate users start screaming at their IT departments, who start screaming at Google, Google tells them to update to a modern browser, but OK if you cannot do that, how about this nice little solution we have waiting in the wings?

*to deploy a IE6 plugin easier*

*blush* sorry…

“designed to make Internet Explorer look bad”

Internet Explorer is bad. Making it look bad, then, is simply revelation.

The whole changing default search engines thing is unncessary and dirty.
Not that I like Microsoft’s defaults, but its a shame to see Google going down the same path.

I prefer google over microsoft but I keep getting the sneaky feeling that google are just the acceptable face of capitalism. They make a hell of a lot of money but the perception is that they don’t charge any of us regulat joe’s a penny.

This is another example of serious concerns about Google. This example would surely constitute a disturbing abuse of power by a major corporation, among deliberate anti-competitive practices.

Google may also be manipulating its search index to disadvantage other companies which are perceived as competitors or in similar industry sectors. With Google’s rapid growth and diversification, an increasing number of companies are falling foul of an overlap between their marketplace and Google’s:-

http://www.timacheson.com/Blog/2009/sep/google_has_too_much_power

To improve awareness, I propose using a tag for similar articles when sharing information on Twitter:

#googlewatch