Web search company Google has hired the lead engineer of the Firefox Web browser, fuelling speculation that Google will create its own version of Firefox to take on Microsoft's dominant Internet Explorer.
Ben Goodger said in a note on his Web site that he would continue to work on Firefox, a free browser that has gained a popular following due to additional features and fewer attacks from malicious hackers.
Internet cognoscenti have speculated about a Google browser since the company registered the Gbrowser.com domain and hired several Internet Explorer engineers last year. (Internet Explorer is a Microsoft product. MSNBC is a Microsoft and NBC joint venture.)
A Google spokeswoman in London declined to say whether the company had a browser in the works. "We can't share any information about what we're working on, but many of our products aim to transform the browsing experience," she said.
Goodger's title at Google will be software engineer, she said, and half of his time will be donated to the non-profit Mozilla foundation, which owns Firefox.
The Firefox browser has been downloaded more than 20 million times and currently has a market share of at least 5 percent, according to industry estimates -- a figure that is likely to increase if leveraged with the Google brand name.
Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt has said that the company is not building a browser, but that may leave room for Google to take the fully-built Firefox browser and add its own features.
Google has expanded well beyond its core Internet search engine, especially since its initial public offering last August.
It now offers email (Gmail), a blogging service (Blogger), a price comparison site (Froogle) and a news site (Google News), and on Tuesday it announced a test service to search TV programmes.
