Dylan
McClure
ENT3003
Quantem
Web Browser – Business Venture
Web
browsers have come a very long way, but they could be even better
with a little bit of innovation. By utilizing the already flourishing
protocol, HTTP, and trying to streamline the process and make things
more efficient, the current process of modern day web browsers could
become even better and faster. As the project would be open source,
anyone from all over the world would be able to work on it, but it
would be up to the creators of websites to add these little snippets
that would then be interpreted by the Quantem Web Browser so that
they could do things that no other website has been able to do
before. JavaScript, the
programming language for HTML (a language that represents web content
for webpages), allows website creators and maintainers to create a
lot of fancy effects and even provide a lot of nice functionality
from menus to performing actions based on mouse clicks among other
higher-level tasks that are either useful or nice effects.
Innovation:
The
Quantem Web Browser will, among other things, provide very easy and
secure way
to write code that will interact with users (via
the mouse and keyboard). Of course, the web browser will still have a
JavaScript engine that will be able to parse JavaScript and be able
to interpret HTML and CSS and render websites correctly, but the
Quantem Web Browser will also be able to interpret special code
snippets, called
Quantem Code,
that
can be inserted via comments in the HTML. The main features (at least
in the beginning) will be clean, interactive menus, diagrams and
charts, . It's
also important to note
that
a particular variable would be set to notify JavaScript if Quantem
Code is being used (this is quite useful since Quantem Code might
actually replace certain functionality implemented by JavaScript).
Note that these features would only be usable in web browsers that
use the Quantem Parser (the parser that is the entire reason the
Quantem Web Browser is being used). Since
the web browser will be open source, money cannot be made off of the
software itself. Therefore, the money will come from advertisements
on the website. Also, as the creator(s) of the software, the initial
developer(s) may gain recognition in the software community, which is
– undoubtedly – important. Quantem
Code will very much resemble JavaScript as it will be very easy to
code in while performing a lot of functionality, however the main
difference is how Quantem Code will go about modifying things on the
screen. If we can have 3-dimensional graphics that can render things
almost flawlessly in real time, then we can have
Opportunity:
The
Quantem Web Browser would almost certainly be able to enter the
market because not only is it building off of the success of modern
websites and not trying to veer too far from the course, it would
provide a lot of benefits and power that websites simply don't have
today. The website would be extremely secure (especially in the
beginning) because, not only would all security breaches be looked at
as soon as possible, but the protocol wouldn't really be “hackable”
because the protocol used by the Quantem Web Browser would not be
known – for example, Microsoft Windows and JavaScript are common
sources of hacks because the protocol for both are very well known
and used a lot. Of course, as the software became more used, the
security risks would dramatically increase, but hopefully by then
there will be a community that will be maintaining the software and
continuing the advancement of the security of the software. If not,
then the creator(s) and/or maintainers of the web browser would
continue the security updates.
The
biggest flaw with JavaScript is the security issues with which many
are familiar. Even though there are often restrictions imposed on
JavaScript that is executed, malicious code can still often be
executed complying with the restrictions. The
most common forms of malicious JavaScript code utilize obfuscation,
“drive-by download” attacks using iframe attacks and other
commonplace tricks that try to get the the user to permit the malware
to do what it wants to do (like download things or get information).
JavaScript malware attacks have grown significantly in the past five
years, and although security updates try to counterbalance this, it
seems like there will always be
attacks on JavaScript because it is particularly lucrative according
to various sources and there is a lot of room to be creative.
Because
of the security problems with JavaScript, there is room for the
Quantem Web Browser to take a hold of this place in the market, but
the biggest problem, it seems, is getting the developers of websites
to start to use this. JavaScript faced a similar problem initially;
at first there was just HTML (a markup language which represents web
content like text and images and has a limited ability to make things
look pretty or place things properly) and CSS (which is a style sheet
language that describes the appearance and
presentation
of the document
markup).
Then JavaScript came along and provided website developers to make
their websites more responsive. The website creators/maintainers,
however, had to write code that used JavaScript and then import that
in their HTML. So, JavaScript had to start somewhere, and people had
to start to put the code in their websites. Similarly, the Quantem
Web Browser would provide, as explained briefly in the Product
section, a
new, efficient and easily producible way to interact with the user.
Since the code to do this would be hidden in the comments of the
HTML, people
would be able to write code specifically for the Quantem Web Browser.
As the Quantem Code – as the code that is specific to the Quantem
Web Browser is called – would overwrite certain aspects of the
original web content (like JavaScript), websites written in HTML, CSS
and JavaScript would still work exactly the same as they did before,
but the Quantem Code would allow websites viewed in the Quantem Web
Browser to be particularly useful, fast and clean-looking.
Based
on what has been discussed above, it is clear that the customers are
both developers of websites as well as users of websites – which is
a market that encompasses nearly everyone in the world that owns a
computer. If this does, in fact, gain
a hold,
then this product has
the potential to get
as big as JavaScript has become. The main source of revenue would be
a website for the web browser (which would have advertisements),
since the project would be open source (people can view and modify
the source code without restriction – to an extent depending on the
license it uses. The window of opportunity for the browser will be
there perhaps for another few years or at least until another major
web browser comes out. Perhaps even JavaScript could be updated to
allow for greater functionality that is less expensive (because it is
fairly resource intensive as it is now),
but this is highly unlikely to happen.
Venture
Concept:
The
Quantem Web Browser will, undoubtedly, be one one of the best web
browsers available for a variety of reasons and – with the proper
marketing – should have no problem growing its user base almost
exponentially at first. The primary reason everyone should switch
upon completion of the project is because it will be one of the
fastest web browsers available. Every aspect of the web browser will
be geared towards making it extremely fast. In particular the way
that the web content gets interpreted and displayed will certainly be
faster than it is currently. It is time (finally) for web browsers to
catch up to their potential. Security,
of course, is a major issue also that will attract users.
It
seems biggest obstacle to getting users to switch is that they
already have a preferred web browser that they have been using for a
while. In order to overcome this, the web browser will be designed to
be as intuitive as possible. The layout menu and everything inside
the browser will all be designed by hand; everything in the menu and
settings will be as easy to configure as possible while allowing the
user to only have to click 4 times (maximum) in order to get where he
or she needs to. Most things will probably be one or two clicks away,
and everything will have a keyboard shortcut. Secondly, there will
bee an option to import your bookmarks from Chrome and Firefox. Since
these are the two most popular web browsers, it will be very easy for
most people to just click a button and get all of their bookmarks
from either
or both Chrome and Firefox.
Security
is also a major concern for many but because JavaScript can be
overwritten by Quantem Code, there is a way to provide more
functionality (more so than JavaScript) but also eliminate all of
the security flaws that come with JavaScript. I expect that if
Quantem Code is sufficiently comprehensive and mature enough, then it
could be almost as big and maybe even bigger than JavaScript.
Additionally, there will be major security measures that attempt to
protect the users anonymity more so than any other web browser.
Developers of websites shouldn't know your location and name or
anything personal about you. Although this is good for certain
things, it really just infringes on the rights of the users.
The
competition that the Quantem Web Browser and the Quantem Parser are
fierce, but with time, a lot of effort and the right marketing, they
have the ability to outrun their competitors. Although Chrome and
Firefox are already large organizations and they – along with
JavaScript – have a large user base, what they don't have is a
fresh start. All three of these pieces of software are stuck in a
rut; they have no hope of just starting over and making things as
efficiently and intelligently as they can. That is why, with a
significant amount of effort, the Quantem Web Browser and the parser
would enter the market and takeover the web browser industry.
In
order to get the first few prototypes out and then continue the
development of the Quantem Web Browser and the Quantem Parser, a lot
of volunteers are going to have to invest a significant amount of
time. In order to do this, a source code management system, git, will
be used to maintain all of the source code so that developers can
work alongside one another in order to make the browser a success.
The source code will be hosted on the popular website github since
this is secure and very easy for people to interact as it has a lot
of functionality.
