While it has been many years since I've been a part of a tech community, I gotta think Microsoft's promoting a browser based on the Chromium project is a big deal. And oddly, a part of me, albeit a small part of me, is sad to see it go. You see Microsoft Internet Explorer paralleled my tech world. I came online with Netscape Navigator 1.1 to 1.2. Internet Explorer became a player at 3.0 as I entered college and after I grabbed my first diploma at today's Bass Pro Shops Pyramid and furthered my IT career, I replaced IE with Firefox. Nevertheless, IE tagged along, generally annoyingly in the way with its lack of web design standards adoption, a monolithic vestibule of a top down structure. By contrast, Firefox gave power to its adherents with tabs and addons! In time, Chrome brought to our consciousness speed, and if I may borrow poorly from Talladega Nights, "(The Internet) is all about speed, hot nasty bad-ass speed."

Of course, along the way, Microsoft had its antitrust lawsuits as they integrated IE with Windows 98, whereas today, Google has an entire operating system and associated hardware based on its own browser and nobody blinks (and maybe the move to mobile computing has a lot to do with that—it's no longer a Windows world). Some argue that the Chromium project is shaping the way we view the Internet, though they are pointing their fingers at Google. Maybe there's an argument—I'll agree Google has FAR too much of a reach, frighteningly so, until major players can come into the market. Google:

• Tracks your moments in cyberspace;
• Reads the emails of all of its users;
• Forces what should be advertised to you;
• Chooses what you'll see when you do a search.

Regardless of benevolence / malevolence, that's Castle Grayskull kind of POWER. Am I Michael Scott? "When people hear the term 'big brother' they immediately think it's bad or scary. I don't. I think, 'Wow, I love my big brother.'"

Maybe Google is special and it isn't like othe ther publicly traded companies with its kid-targeted cereal aisle stamped ecstatically with approval by the American Heart Association...

In the meantime, I'm going to run with Protonmail and Brave.