If you fired up Google Chrome today alongside the version that launched in 2008, you’d struggle to tell them apart.
The address bar runs along the top, there’s a row of bookmarks, a few buttons to the left, tabs at the top, and that’s it. Has the way we use the web really not changed in 15 years? There are alternative browser makers who would disagree.
Google pioneered the fuss-free, feature-stripped browser in 2008, and the rest of its mainstream rivals followed. But there’s a new undercurrent of “power browsers” designed to satisfy users who want more from their web browser: browsers with built-in email clients and feed readers; browsers that separate home and work life; browsers that don’t endlessly distract you from the task at hand with notifications and alerts.