Lowter

Google Announces New Web Browser

Published on the 1st of September 2008

By Ethan Poole

Today Google, using a comic (external link), announced that they have been developing their own web browser called Chrome. Basically, Chrome is Google's answer to improving web browsers and they have some pretty good ideas. The comic explains everything pretty well, but to list a few key points:

• The browser is focused on each tab being "separate". Each tab runs in its own process so that if it crashes the entire application doesn't go down along with it. Plus the technical setup of the tabs (what they describe as a "sandbox") makes them more secure.
• They have a new JavaScript virtual machine that will increase JavaScript performance and reliability.
• Privacy mode, like Safari.
• Built-in phishing protection via a central list constantly updated by Google.
• Gears (external link) is built into the web browser.

Overall, Chrome sounds like it'll be really nice and, knowing Google, I am anxious to see the actual product hands-on. It will be a nice improvement in the web-standards arena, but I'm afraid that it will only take market share from Firefox and not from IE, which won't help too much. I would also like to point out that the "innovative" start tab is very similar to Opera's Speed Dial. If you want more information, I highly recommend just reading the comic (external link) because it explains things very well. We'll try to have a blog entry about Google Chrome when we get our hands on it!

Opera 9. Innovation delivered. Download Now (external link)