For years, Google Earth was an experience designed for computers and mobiles, through an app. In 2015 he leapt the web version, and at the same time, Google stopped giving priority to applications. But there was a problem: it only worked in the Chrome browser. Almost five years later, Google Earth already works in Firefox, Edge and Opera.
You may miss a name on that list: Safari. Google Earth still does not work in Safari, but apparently, it is the fault of Apple, which does not have much interest in operating in its ecosystem a service that is the main competition of its own Apple Maps.
The web version of Google Earth is spectacular. We have tested it in both Firefox and Edge and it works perfectly, although officially it is still in beta. The zoom is very fast, as is the data load. It is possibly the best web application that exists, but nothing can be compared to the incredible and almost forgotten version of virtual reality, where you can fly over the rooftops and streets of any city in the world, in real size.
Why was Google Earth an exclusive to Google Chrome? Why did it take three years to reach other browsers?
At the time Google justified it, argued that to convert the native C ++ code of the original application to the web code, you had to use Chrome-only Native Client (NaCl), a Chrome-based technology that allowed you to get the performance needed to use an App as complex and demanding as Google Earth, from a web page.
In 2015 there were no standards common to all browsers for this type of tasks, but now: WebAssembly. Google has been adapting the Google Earth code for months to WebAssambly, which is compatible with major browsers.
The effort has been worth it. Google Earth already works perfectly in Firefox, Microsoft Edge and Opera.
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