Google Chrome, Google’s unexpected open source web browser was announced over the Labour Day weekend and launched only a day later – it is now available for download in more than 100 countries.
Here are some excerpts from the Google Blog announcement on September 1st, 2008 “A Fresh Take on the Browser“:
“On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn’t the browser that matters. It’s only a tool to run the important stuff — the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go”
Under the hood, Google claims is a browser that runs today’s complex web applications much better:
“By keeping each tab in an isolated ‘sandbox’, we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites.”- “We improved speed and responsiveness across the board.”
- “We also built a more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, to power the next generation of web applications that aren’t even possible in today’s browsers.”
And Google claims (with a great deal of credibility) “Google Chrome is far from done.” In fact, they are “hard at work building versions for Mac and Linux too, and will continue to make it even faster and more robust.”
Google thanked the open source community because they “used components from Apple’s WebKit and Mozilla’s Firefox, among others — and in that spirit, we are making all of our code open source as well. We hope to collaborate with the entire community to help drive the web forward.”
Hear more about Google Chrome direct from Google in this video from Google outlining 10 Features of Google Chrome (updated from last video that turned out too short):
You can also see the Google Chrome comic book that was “accidentally” released a couple of days early explaining the technology. Big thanks to the always attentive Google Blogoscoped for picking up on the leak and breaking the story to the blogosphere. Here is the latest article from Blogoscoped providing a great walk through of browsing with Google Chrome.
Also here is a video from the Google Chrome development team providing additional insight into their reasons behind the product:
If you want to learn more just stay tuned to the blogosphere because there is no doubt Google Chrome will be on the top of many blogs for a while; especially with the inevitable add-ons and upgrades coming for the platform. Here is a link to my personal news feed for any news directly from the search engines themselves – check it out and feel free to use it as your touchstone.