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There’s a new browser out called Blackbird. It’s very similar to Firefox with some additions, such as search results will tend to come more from Black American sources and it includes built-in social networking features.

There’s been some controversy. Some people claim it’s racist.
I don’t agree, I see it as an interesting way of connecting people to African American culture. I don’t know if it does that effectively or not.
However, anyone is free to download it and use it, so I doesn’t seem discriminatory.
There are already other social networking browsers out there. Blackbird connects a group sharing a culture together.

Could we have a Whitebird browser? There’s not really a white subculture. I could see a DixieBird though.

The developers were smart in making it a stand alone browser instead of just a Firefox plug-in or a website.
It’s more buzz worthy. It’s a more powerful vehicle for spreading the message. Could it have been done with a website? Absolutely. Those websites already exist, but I’ve never heard of them.

My favorite feature is the “Give Back” button, which takes you to a site where you can discover volunteer opportunies for many different causes.

Google recently released it’s browser, Chrome, in beta for Windows.

Evidently, Mozilla is not worried. Google funds the majority of Mozillas expenses in return for a default Google homepage and search engine in Firefox.

The UI is innovative and well done, including a feature similar to the Speed Dial found in Opera (also a a great Firefox extension). More profound is it’s more secure and efficient JavaScript engine. A little more competition in the browser market is great. Firefox may take a small hit, but Google recently renewed their deal with Mozilla until 2011, so no financial worries for a few years. Anything to either reduce IE market share or force Microsoft to fix their browser is progress. I bet Chrome will push many browsers developers to be a bit more innovative, including Opera and Mozilla.

Web developers should be aware that Chrome’s rendering engine is Webkit, the same as Apple’s Safari. Any page that doesn’t render correctly in Safari will look the same in Chrome, so know may be the time to fix those rendering bugs. Chrome is advertised right on the Google search page, so expect a lot of people to start using it.

To learn more about Chrome, check out Google’s Chrome comic by Scott McCloud.