Google announces Chrome web browser

Posted at: 5:53pm 2nd September 2008 by Ben Hardwidge

Opens each tab in an isolated ‘sandbox’ and runs complex applications much quicker than today’s browsers, says Google

Google has already gone from a small search engine to huge global corporation in the space of just a few years, and it’s now taking its world domination plan a step further with the announcement of its web browser, called Chrome. The company promises that Google Chrome will be ‘clean and fast,’ and likens it to its search engine’s minimalist Google homepage, saying that ‘it gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go.’

The Windows BETA of the browser will launch in 100 countries tomorrow, but Google is already building up anticipation with an online comic that explains the reasoning behind the launch. After apparently hitting ‘send’ on the comic earlier than planned, news about the browser spread like wildfire, and Google has now made it officially available here.

The idea behind Chrome is that it’s been built from scratch to accommodate today’s websites, which make heavy use of interactive features such as chat facilities, as well as Web applications and video. By comparison, standard web browsers such as Internet Explorer were originally designed for the basic Web in its infancy, and Google argues that subsequent versions of the browsers built on this, when the new Web really needs a brand new design.

On Googleblog, the company explains that ‘we realised 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.’

The result, according to Google, is a new browser that ‘runs today's complex web applications much better.’ As well as this, each tab in Chrome will be opened in an isolated ‘sandbox,’ with the aim of creating a secure environment where your computer is safe dodgy sites, and where other tabs won’t be crashed by another tab. Google also says that it’s created a ‘more powerful JavaScript engine’ that will allow the development of web applications ‘that aren't even possible in today's browsers.’

Interestingly, despite claiming that Chrome was built from scratch, Google also says that the browser uses open-source ‘components from Apple's WebKit and Mozilla's Firefox,’ although we don’t know which components were taken yet. Google also says that it will continue the open-source spirit by making all the code for Chrome open source as well.

Only the Windows BETA launches tomorrow, but Google says that it’s ‘hard at work building versions for Mac and Linux too.’ Do we need a new browser for the modern Web, or are Firefox, Opera and IE doing the job fine? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.