It's time for browser wars, part two. While this one is likely to be different than the first browser war, years from now we'll look back on both wars as having a huge affect on the way we spend our days and nights.

In the first browser war, it was Microsoft as the new kid on the block trying to unseat the incumbent Netscape browser. As we know, Microsoft won hands down by bundling Internet Explorer into Windows so every user could get it for free. Free is an extremely powerful incentive -- often better than better.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer is the dominant browser, having market share that had peaked at almost 97 percent of all browsers until the Justice Department helped level the playing field. The upstart this time is Google, which introduced its new browser, Chrome, on Thursday, almost 10 years to the day after the company's founding (Sept. 7, 2008)."

Although Google hasn't been successful with every product it has launched, those that have gained traction in the market have become extreme successes -- and the stakes in the battle have grown to the multibillion-dollar level. It's not just the browser market that's at stake. It could mean leadership of the desktop, the Internet, advertising markets and even the tech world. This battle pits free vs free, leaving users to choose which is better.

Google's Chrome browser was developed in nearly full secrecy. On Labor Day word leaked out, and by the time the browser was ready, the buzz was deafening. Those who were able to find it before Google offered it on their home page (like me), got the chance to download the beta.

The Chrome browser promises a better Internet experience, with the prime directive being a browser built from the ground up for emerging Internet applications -- not just for static Web pages. The engineers, in fact, want you to forget about the browser altogether, hoping that you'll concentrate on the Web applications that make up the rest of the experience. To do this, they have minimized the number of buttons, text and icons that you see around the edge of the screen -- the part known by developers as the chrome of an application; hence the name.

The promise of a better Web experience would be viewed by making it quicker and easier to find information -- something Google already does very well -- as well as making it less risky and less prone to software glitches and crashes. Chrome does a good job at all of these, thereby helping move the state of the art further ahead.

Yet, in doing so, Google also opens up new opportunities for itself and its investors. By providing the vehicle for the browsing experience, it no longer has to wait for users to go to its Web sites. It has their attention full time -- an important attribute in the advertising market. The company, known for its "Don't Be Evil" corporate code of conduct and its secretive business activities, also can collect information from a broader set of users more frequently, thereby building profiles that are even more massive than the profiles it currently builds.

Even the way the company helps you find information is streamlined to subtly work in Google's favor. No Google toolbar; no favorites pane; just a single field to type in your search and your Web site addresses -- where Google can gently lead you wherever the company engineers please.

Chrome also positions Google to finally gain control of desktop computing from Microsoft as the product blurs the lines between desktop and Web. Applications that you previously thought were desktop applications start to run in conjunction with your browser, and Web applications get placed more seamlessly on the desktop.

Microsoft, in the meantime, has been busily developing the next version of its Internet Explorer browser -- IE 8. In recent weeks, it has displayed a number of new attributes of that browser, including a new private browsing mode that has the advertising world worried about whether ads will be blocked. (Chrome has a similar feature.) But within three days of the Google announcement, the company started to push harder on IE 8's features that are similar to key features of the Google product, such as page tabs that work separately from one another, so if one crashes, you don't lose all your open pages. Any user can download and try out IE 8.

The new choice of browsers means new opportunities for higher productivity and more pleasant computing experiences. But also there are risks as the potential for misuse of information about them grows. According to Robbin Steif, CEO of LunaMetrics, a Pittsburgh-based Google Analytics authorized consultant, "People are skeptical of Google's use of their data; but the company is working very hard to be transparent about how it will use the information. And it gives them the choice of how to share it -- even on the first page when starting up Chrome."

It also might mean more segmentation of the applications -- where one Web site works better (or simply works) on Chrome, while another works better on Internet Explorer. Jamie Keaney, senior search strategist for IMPAQT, a Green Tree-based search engine optimization company, suggests that if Chrome becomes the new browser of choice, advertisers will have to tailor their advertising campaigns to Chrome's functions and capabilities -- one of which is a mode that allows users to hide their activities as they surf.

From a vendor perspective, Google has more to win, Microsoft more to lose. Even if Google doesn't gain tremendous market share, it opens the door for other competing browsers, such as FireFox from the Mozilla Organization, to gain share at Microsoft's expense. That would help Google gain an additional revenue edge over Microsoft in the ever-growing Internet advertising market. And that could be Google's biggest win of all.