I’m testing out Google’s new browser, which is now in open beta (available here) and so far I’m impressed.

My initial reaction was, “WTF?  Why another freaking browser?”  But then I read the story behind it, about why the decided to create a new browser from the ground up, and … wow.  It made complete sense.

Who knows if it will catch on or not, but it has the potential to change everything.

Here’s the main advantage and why I’m at least partially sold on it:  They designed it from scratch for how we use the Internet now, as opposed to the other browsers which all struggle to accommodate what they were never designed to do in the first place.

Think of it.  We now use the browser as the universal application.  We use it for everything.  It was never designed to do that — it was supposed to display passive HTML.  Everything else the browsers do now is because of add-ons to the original design and concept.

The Google browser is designed from the ground up to be the universal application, almost — if you will — an operating system for the “Cloud.”  They designed it with the features of an operating system.  It’s built to run programs.

This is what I expect to happen:  Mozilla will adopt it as the new core for Firefox and this will be the basis for Firefox 4.  Microsoft will also adopt it and make it Internet Explorer 9.

If they don’t, they’re doomed, and they’d be stupid not to because the code is all open source.