Google Releases Web Browser: Google Chrome

According to Google’s official blog, Google is all set to launch the beta version of Google Chrome, a brand new and highly sophisticated open source web browser, today (02/09/2008) in more than 100 countries.
An excerpt from the blog says: “Because we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build.”

Google provides a 38 page comic presentation which explains the in and out of Chrome. It, (Google Chrome) like the Google home page is said to be clean and fast and will have the optimal amount of features built into it.

Google engineers started off by thinking of a multi threaded browser but ended up building a multi process, multi threaded one, more or less having the process isolating capability of a modern Operating System.

In Chrome, the user primarily interacts with the TAB. The TABs are placed at the top most part of the application (unlike the present browsers). Each TAB has its own process and many JavaScript threads, which gives you the power to continue using other tabs even when a tab is busy or down! To add on, each TAB has its on controls including the URL box which they call “OMNIBOX” which also gives search suggestions.

Chrome uses a technique called sandboxing to prevent malware from installing itself on your computer. Each process that runs in a confined area with all its privileges stripped off. The size of the confined area is defined by the permissions you set. It also follows that any communication must be initiated by the user.

Features at a Glance

• Primary Importance on tabbed browsing
• Each tab is linked to it’s own process
• Each tab has multiple JavaScript threads
• Uses a new and powerful JavaScript engine, V8
• Better memory management
• Uses Open Sources Rendering Engine, WEBKIT
• Text search on History
• A sophisticated auto completion feature
• Newly opened TAB has 9 most visited pages
• NO Pop Ups!
• Uses sandboxing to prevent malware
• Plug-ins use separate process for stability
• Warnings on Phishing and Malware sites
• GEARS (APIs) for making development easy
• Incognito Mode - for private browsing
• Open Source

Future of Chrome

Google Chrome has got a long way to go! The blog says: “This is just the beginning -- Google Chrome is far from done. We're releasing this beta for Windows to start the broader discussion and hear from you as quickly as possible. We're hard at work building versions for Mac and Linux too, and will continue to make it even faster and more robust.”

Let’s wait to see!

[Update:02/09/08] Chrome is now available for download here