Google Launches Chrome Browser

Today Google is launching a beta of a new open-source browser, Chrome, in 100 countries, aimed at competing with Firefox and IE.

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer dominates the PC browser market. But that might end up a historical fact as today Google launches its own open-source browser for Windows, named Chrome. The beta will be available in 100 countries, and the company promises Linux and Mac versions will arrive soon.

In a blog posting announcing the browser’s arrival (which includes a carton, oddly), Google’s Sundar Pichai wrote:

“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.”

So what have they done? Pichai continued:

“Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of 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.”

“We owe a great debt to many open source projects, and we’re committed to continuing on their path. We’ve 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.”

Time will tell how good it is, of course. But with Google’s reputation and record, the chances are that it will prove popular.