The battle ensues for controlling your desktop now that Google Chrome has entered the mix.

Google Chrome is a fast web browser that has a no nonsense look, basically just containing the bare essentials. This is in keeping with Google’s straightforward home page. Sergey Brin, the co-founder describes the new browser as “basic”.

So what is so valuable about the market? Firstly due to the reason that our browser choice often influences our search engine choice as well as our growing reliance on web applications. These including anything from webmail, online games, etc’. As a result, a faster and more secure and stable browser has a higher demand.

Google is counting on a move by people from software installed on their hard drives to hosted software, often referred to as cloud computing. This would make Microsoft’s Windows less important. The Chrome browser allows Google to move into this market.

For its share, Microsoft has fine tuned its next browser, Explorer 8 by making it more secure and copying certain features found in Firefox.

Which browser is better really does depend on individual preference. It’s either Google’s more stream lined design compared to a preference for Explorer’s web development tools. According to independent tests, Chrome offers faster browsing than either IE8 or Firefox. Also, tests show that explorer uses more memory than either Chrome or Firefox.