One prominent industry CEO used to say that only the paranoid survive. If that is indeed the case, than Mozilla should probably shift into overdrive.

The organization behind the open source Firefox browser may be in for a rude awakening in the form of the Google Chrome browser, according to some experts.

This is not to say that Firefox, which has grown, not lost market share (it is now sitting at a nice 22.47 percent, with Chrome at 2.59 percent) is doomed.

But still, some prominent Boca Raton computer repair practitioners believe that some of the following reasons for consumers preferring and switching to Chrome are crucial:

1. The open source version of Chrome is not perfect, but it is fast. Very fast. And speed is not just some random feature, but what matters most to many users.

2. Its from-scratch V8 Javascript engine is not above and beyond Firefox 3.5's counterpart, Tracemonkey, but in many other ways, Chromium wins, launching more quickly, featuring snappier tabs and not slowing down after prolonged use.

While these gains when measured might seem minute, and apply strictly to the Linux versions of Chrome and Firefox right now, they will add up over time.

Perhaps Firefox's greatest edge in this escalating turf war over open source is for Microsoft may be taking its side, at least up against Google.

Microsoft Office Web Apps, which are due out in 2010, will support Firefox and other "familiar Web browsers," which doesn't include Chrome, Safari or Opera.

This leads us to believe that Microsoft will only be supporting browsers that don't have an operating system competitor attached to them.

The browser market has become hugely competitive and, as a result, more innovative and much more interesting. How will Mozilla team will respond to Chrome's apparent speed advantages, and how will Google, Apple, and Microsoft respond in kind?

If we could just get this level of competition in all areas of software.