Google Enters the Browser Market with Open-Source "Chrome"
Posted 09/02/08 at 02:05:46 PM | by Paul Lilly
Update: Chrome Beta is now available for download! Get it here
Mozilla's Firefox and Microsoft's Internet Explorer dominate the browser market, and more than a handful of alternative browsers have been able to carve out a niche following. With all the competition already in place, is there room for another contender?
Google thinks so, and tomorrow will release its Google Chrome browser in beta form to more than 100 countries. The announcement comes earlier than expected thanks to a leaked comic book making the rounds on the web. In it, the characters discuss what Google Chrome purports to bring to the table.
"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," Google wrote on its blog. "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 claims its new open-source Chrome browser will be clean and fast. To help with speed, Google says Chrome will keep each tab in an isolated "sandbox," with a separate process rendering each one. Not only should this help with performance, but if there's a bug in the code, you'll only lose one tab instead of crashing the entire browser. This also means that memory leaks can be identified and addressed by closing a single tab instead of exiting the browser.
These and all the other goodies outlined in Google's leaked cartoon all sound good on paper. Should Mozilla and Microsoft be worried?
Image Credit: Google
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Suspicious behavior
Submitted by abqjorax on Thu, 2008-09-04 22:01
When I search CNN in Chrome, I get directed to pcsearching.com, which Whois shows as a Russian site. This doesn't happen in Firefox or IE. Try it in Chrome and let me know if you get similar results, or tell me I have spyware that has escaped my filter.
Submitted by winmaster on Sun, 2008-09-07 10:18
I haven't tried Chrome yet, but when I go to www.pcsearching.com in Opera, it redirects me to Google.
Yeah I just tried it too in
Submitted by sirphunkee on Fri, 2008-09-05 14:32
Yeah I just tried it too in Chrome...searching "CNN" in the address bar, and I also tried going to CNN.com and doing a search with the site's search function, and both worked properly for me (no redirects).
I'd start looking for no-no-ware on your machine
Do you mean typing "CNN" in
Submitted by jwalch.hawk on Fri, 2008-09-05 13:00
Do you mean typing "CNN" in the search/address bar at the top of the browser? I kind of expected it to behave a little more AwesomeBar-like and actually direct me to CNN's website, but instead it just directed me to a page of Google results for that query. Hard to explain what's going on with that pcsearching.com redirect you're getting, though.
Submitted by Nogoodname on Wed, 2008-09-03 14:35
google chrome has a porn button like IE8just rightclick on a link and click open in incognito window in chrome
Submitted by laner399 on Wed, 2008-09-03 07:57
Chrome = Specialty Firefox
Just go to the Mozilla developer section and look up documents headed with "sandbox", then for a bigger suprise look ones headed with "chrome", and though they are rather vague documents, they have been there for some time!! It is no secret that Firefox and Google colaborated on this one, it even says it on the BBS news cap on the subject, and according to BBC Google and Mozilla are to collaborate "for some time". It is no lie that Google has been borrowing from the open source community for some time, that became blatently appearent when they released the Linux distro called gOS. How else can the Google search engine make Liver Search seem to suck so quickly as it did (Liver Search undoubtably runs on Window$ and it's spider engine probably flops aroung like a gimpy quadripaligac compared to Google's spider engine which secretly doesn't). At least Google isn't trying to reinvent the wheel, repeatedly, like M$ DOeS !!!
Linux = the Future NOW!!
its ok
Submitted by avanish11 on Tue, 2008-09-02 16:58
Its ok, but if there's no adblock or similar extension, I won't use it.
Submitted by N25PHILLY on Tue, 2008-09-02 12:58
pure garbage and there is a line forming of people that want to swear by it.
Submitted by sirphunkee on Tue, 2008-09-02 14:47
wow, to have such a firm opinion of the quality of the final product, you must have been testing your little ass off in the short couple of hours that it's been public. Thanks for taking a break to share your results with us.
Submitted by N25PHILLY on Wed, 2008-09-03 13:17
How long do you have to use it to see that it can't even render simple pages right? It's made by Google though so I'm sure everyone will be calling it the best browser ever by the end of the week.
Submitted by sirphunkee on Fri, 2008-09-12 23:45
Well, longer than 10 days it seems, because that's how long I've been using it (and constantly), and I have yet to come across any "simple" pages it couldn't render.
Submitted by jwalch.hawk on Tue, 2008-09-02 19:00
Rofl... No, dude... He's had access to it for way longer than you, Google sent it to him special.
Wait...
I just realized the battery to my sarcas-o-meter died... *replaces battery*
Nevermind. As you were.
There's no home button, you
Submitted by b_boy_69_00 on Tue, 2008-09-02 12:33
There's no home button, you have to open a new tab to go back to the start page, that is really annoying.
Submitted by sirphunkee on Tue, 2008-09-02 12:43
go to the customize and control menu (the wrench-looking icon), then options, and on the "basics" tab there's an option to "show home button on toolbar"
Submitted by erolsipar on Tue, 2008-09-02 12:18
Haha Im using chrome right now its good and faster than firefox 3.1
Using Chrome now. It's a bit
Submitted by nedwards on Tue, 2008-09-02 12:18
Using Chrome now. It's a bit weird, but not a bad weird.
Submitted by sirphunkee on Tue, 2008-09-02 11:49
That comic strip they made is damn funny! But actually pretty educational too...sounds like they've got some damn good ideas going into this, it'll be great to see some of them in action soon. Google has obviously been laying the groundwork for this for a while...after reading that info it's easy to see some of the technologies have already been fleshed out in apps like Gmail etc.
What's really funny though is two of the panels from the comic...in one there's an IM conversation where one of the replies is "OMFG!"...and in another there's a browser with http://www.wtf??.com in the address bar LOL
Curious...
Submitted by Talcum X on Tue, 2008-09-02 10:39
And Google paid Mozilla how much to be top search engine? Now they are going to compete in the open source browser market? Makes no sence to me, anyways. Tho, I'm curious what they bring to the table. I'm sure whatever it is, FireFox wont be far behind.
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