There has for a long time been a rumor on the Net, regarding Google building its own browser. The main argument goes like this:

As more and more tasks can be done online (email, word processing, photo editing etc.) Microsoft will gradually loose the advantages of controlling the dominating operating system, Windows. This will open up the playing field for new players, developing web browser based services that can be used on all operating system.

However, Microsoft still controls the main browser, Internet Explorer. Hence, if you really wanted to defeat Microsoft you should make people switch to an another web browsing platform. Who could be better suited to this than Google, who has the strongest web navigation brand on the planet?

The fact that Google also has hired web browser specialists have fuelled the rumors, and the most likely scenario posted has been a Google browser based on Mozilla/Firefox.

This is not to be, Google chief executive Eric Schmidt now says. “It looks like people have some good browser choices already,” Schmidt argues. “We would not build a browser for the fun of building a browser.”

As iTnews points out, Google already does a lot to get people switch from the Internet Explorer. It has partnerships with Norway’s Opera browser and Apple’s Safari and it has developed a toolbar for the Firefox community. And Firefox has, as many knows, become a real threat to the Explorer.

However, this does not mean that Google is not worried about the Microsoft Internet Explorer hegemony. Schmidt repeats Google’s worry that the Explorer in the next version of Windows — Vista — will steer users to Microsoft’s own search engine.

Given that the Google/Apple and Google/Opera partnerships have led to browsers leading users Google’s way, we guess they know what they are talking about.