As an update to my last post about the future viability of Firefox comes news that Google Chrome will now have the built-in ability to sync your bookmarks with the cloud – presumably with Google Bookmarks – as well as support for themes.

Both these features narrow Firefox’s lead over Chrome vis-a-vis features. The bookmarks sync competes with Mozilla Weave (although a quick look at Weave’s use cases show that it can do more than just sync bkmarks), and Chrome theme support competes with Personas for Firefox. Chrome will also have support for extensions at some future point. At that point, Chrome will be as full-featued a browser as Firefox.

These developments demonstrate that Firefox cannot compete on features alone. Security, extensibility (beyond just support for extensions), openness, integration into users’ online lifestyle – these are more viable points to compete on, although it’s tougher and requires more smarts to communicate this – to shape these amorphous concepts into a
clear message you can sell on.

(Sorry for lack of links – posting from BBerry)