Google Chrome and Google Gadgets for Africa

Yesterday Tobias expressed his surprise at the new Google browser  and wondered what this means for Africa.   Like Tobias I am quite happy with Firefox even though my preferred browser is Flock: the social browser which integrates your browsing with social media like Facebook, Flickr, Twitter as well as a number of blogging platforms like Typepad and Blogger.  The Google browser called Chrome sounds very much like Flock in that 

will help Google take advantage of developments it is pushing online in rich web applications that are challenging traditional desktop programs

but of course will go further by also integrating Google's many applications which will of course be the carrot to move from Firefox and Flock to Chrome.  I'm not sure about Internet Explorer though personally I cant see why anyone still uses this especailly in the private and non-profit world.   What worries me about Google is it's attempt to completely control the internet world. Surely it cannot be to our advantage as citizens to be totally reliant on one multinational (and thats what Google is even though it tries to pretend otherwise) for all our communication needs - documents, blogs, websites, browsers, search engines, micro-blogging, photos, email, chat, news etc. 

Google is moving into the global south market by translating languages and introducing gadgets such as translators and currency conversions, none of which is a bad thing on the contrary these are excellent moves by Google. I am just concerned about becoming a Google dependent in the way we were Microsoft dependent in the old days.