Introducing ‘Chrome’, The Web Browser From Google

Author: Rees | Date: September 2, 2008

Looks like Google’s ongoing plan for world domination is coming together quite nicely. Yesterday, a leaked comic revealed the existence (and quite technical inner workings) of a web browser from the company, due to be released today. It uses the popular WebKit rendering engine, which is well-known for its speed and efficiency.

The browser will also feature an interesting twist on the tab-based interface, with the tabs at the top of the screen, a unique Java Virtual Machine (re-written from the ground up) which doesn’t freeze up the computer while Java apps are loading, and some very interesting tweaks under the hood.

These tweaks include things like running each tab as a seperate process to minimise system instabaility, as well as much improved memory management over current browsers. Chrome is completely open source, meaning that developers can expand and improve upon it as they wish, and even use Chrome technology in their own projects.

A Windows-only beta will be released later today, with Mac and Linux versions soon to follow. The screenshot above was featured on the Google Chrome site, which has since been taken down. The site is expected re-launch to coincide with Google’s press conference at 11am PDT (7pm BST) today.

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5 Comments »

Comment by OwningXylophone
2008-09-02 22:07:24

Well, I have to say I think Google have done a great job with ‘Chrome’. It’s very minimalistic, with no status bar or header bar and just a few icons on the toolbar. It’s pretty speedy too! The only drawback I’ve noticed so far is that you can’t assign RSS feeds to the bookmarks bar.

I’m sure some fatal flaw will be found and exploited soon enough, but until then I think Firefox might be taking a short break on my PC.

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Comment by trench
2008-09-02 23:29:08

The webcomic brought me much joy, both for the project’s ambitions and the presentation style itself.

The windows-only Beta caused me much hate, stabby stabby hate.

Still, being open source and all means someone will add mouse gestures soon enough and who knows, it may eventually replace Opera as my browser of choice.

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Comment by Bubba
2008-09-02 23:41:34

I knew it was worth holding on to Windows for some reason.

I’m with he who owns the xylophone on this… Its great. Screw Firefox!

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Comment by SmellyGeekBoy
2008-09-03 00:13:21

While I’m not usually one for (too much) Google worship, I do have to admit that it is a fantastic browser. Even considering they’ve released it a lot earlier than expected, it’s very solid and extremely efficient. It’s probably as revolutionary as Opera was back in the pre-Firefox days.

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Comment by Tigervamp
2008-09-03 11:08:34

I am going to stick with Internet Explorer.

*blinks*

I can feel the hatred already!

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