Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) will offer its own internet browser to compete with Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) Internet Explorer and the Mozilla Firefox product.

The software may be plagued by the law of unintended consequences, doing more damage to Firefox than to Microsoft. According to The Wall Street Journal, Google says the "software is designed to make it faster to browse the Web and easier to run applications without downloading software to a computer."

Most PCs come loaded with Internet Explorer as part of Microsoft Windows. That leaves Google with the challenge of getting consumers to download its new browser. Firefox is also software which must be downloaded. Google may end up competing more with Firefox, a product it has supported in the past, than with IE.

Most consumers don't care what browser they use as long as they have access to the internet. Microsoft's largest advantage is that it is part of the PC software package that people use without any thought as to how it might be changed.

Google will end up hurting an ally without doing any damage to its primary rival.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

One of the most important outposts that Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) has on the internet is its browser, Internet Explorer. The huge majority of people who visit sites online use the Redmond product for access and movement around the web. The lists of consumer "favorites" on IE comes pre-loaded with web destinations from Microsoft and its partners. Internet Explorer has information on users through the security settings, which consumers can set, and "cookies" -- used to track web behavior -- which consumers can be viewed and deleted. The software also stores the user's history of sites visited.

Microsoft's main browser competitor, Mozilla, is coming out with a new version of its product, which could help drive its 18% share of the market even higher.

According to The New York Times, "With tasks like e-mail and word processing now migrating from the PC to the Internet, analysts and industry players think the browser will soon become even more valuable and strategically important."

Mozilla's new product will be faster at accessing websites and will use less PC processing power.

Microsoft has already lost the search engine war to Google (NASDAQ:GOOG). Its web portal, MSN, is behind Time Warner (NYSE:TWX)'s AOL and Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO)'s in its audience for a number of key content segments like money and finance.

What the world's largest software company does not need is more online competition. But things aren't working out that way.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

It appears that we are just about a week away from the changing of the guard on the old Browser Wars. If you look on the netscape.aol.com site, you'll see that the old Netscape Browser support will officially end on March 1, 2008. Even the Netscape Blog advises a switch.

Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) has been making many changes at AOL and its properties over the last two years. In fact, Netscape, AOL, Advertising.com, AIM, and just about everything else has changed. Unfortunately, some change also means the death of certain parts, and that part appears to be Netscape.

If you will remember back to the 1990's, this was its own public company with the "NSCP" ticker that had roughly a 90% market share. People even paid for AOL-acquired Netscape when its market share was steadily declining, and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) ended up paying out roughly $750 million in an antitrust settlement over search and bundling. Netscape is still loaded up on many PC's both on its own and via one of those old AOL access dial-up bundle offerings that used to be included with PC's. Now almost no one uses it. I used to use it exclusively, but those days are long gone. What a difference a decade makes.

Even Linux seller Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) paid money at one point for some of Netscape's security software.

Frankly, Mozilla's Firefox has taken the place of Netscape in today's world and it is now almost an equally-yoked rival to Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) Internet Explorer that has been downloaded onto millions of computers. The business of owning a Web Browser is really nothing more than a project. Sure, there are others like Opera, but most web sites only want to support Explorer and Firefox now. Such is life in a world where free is becoming more and more of an expectation.

Even if it is merely for old times sake, "Farewell, old forgotten friend."

Although AOL has chosen to withdraw continuing development of the Netscape Navigator browser, you'll be able to continue using it indefinitely. Honestly though, who would want to?

Netscape doesn't have much in the way of loyalists in the realm of content suppliers, and web users seem not to care much what browser they use as long as the utility is fast, accurate and simple. I myself switched from Netscape to Firefox during the last year because Navigator was giving me image handling problems and Mozilla Firefox proved to be easier, faster and less burdensome.

Since 1994, Netscape has been a leading-edge web utility. However in recent years, competition from Mozilla Firefox has relentlessly scooped away market share from Netscape and a strong and victorious competitive battle has been waged in the interest of Internet Explorer by Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT). Although Netscape proved to be a strong web utility, in the last few years it lacked any significant improvements in user friendliness. I think that situation is in part due to Microsoft's reluctance to make the Windows operating system play nice with Netscape Navigator. We may take pause to wonder if Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) ever properly applied pressure on Microsoft over the situation ... probably not.

In the big picture, no one is going to miss Netscape Navigator. Yes, some few loyalists might whine for a while and some people with fully loaded hard drives might find their machines maxed out by the downloading of a new browser and the system changes associated with that, but in the end it's all good if it makes the browsing experience faster and easier for the end user. Besides, it might force the sale of some new computers, yes?

Perhaps AOL should just spin off Netscape, take a bit of cash for it and write the rest off. That might be easiest in the long run. When given the fact that AOL will apparently be relegating Netscape to second-tier status, do you really think it'll ever get better?

Stick a fork in it gang, it's done.

This Internet is starting to tighten up a bit and I don't like it. Mostly, I'm a little irritated that moves are being made that seek to pigeonhole our options as content producers and seekers. Call me the consummate conspiracy theoretician if you want to, but I say right at the head of this movement is eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY). The following scenario components may provide special interest to the fanciers of Microsoft Corp.(NASDAQ: MSFT). You may also be interested in these tidbits if you hold a chunk of Google Inc.(NASDAQ: GOOG).

About two months ago the online auction proposition was dumped by Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) They gave no real explanation as to why they were doing it. They just closed up shop. Now, they have entered into a joint venture regarding a Yahoo! search tool for eBay. Now that answers some questions, doesn't it.

With Assignment Zero, NewAssignment.net and Wired Magazine are embarking on what they call "An Experiment in Pro-Am Journalism." According to the New York Times, "The idea is to apply to journalism the same open-source model of Web-enabled collaboration that produced the operating system Linux, the Web browser Mozilla and the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

With the site, the lines will be blurred between journalist and audience, as people collaborate to write the news. Here's a list of the stories contributors are being invited to work on. This is an interesting social experiment, and I will certainly be watching the site. With readership and profitability at traditional newspapers in decline, it's clear that the future of how we get the news will be very different from the past.

For some interesting reading on the power of mass collaboration, check out these books: Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything and The Wisdom of Crowds.