The browser wars are set to heat up even more today. Google has announced yesterday the release of its open source browser, Google Chrome. Why is Google launching its own browser?
Because we believe we can add value for users and, at the same time, help drive innovation on the web.
Like Safari, Google Chrome is based on the WebKit rendering engine. Google’s goals for its browsers was for it to be streamlined and simple. It comes with tabbed browsing, a new JavaScript engine called V8 that promises to power the next generation of web applications that aren’t even possible in today’s browsers, integration with Google Gears, a private browsing mode and more. Google also uses a concept called sandboxing that prevents a tab that has crashed from taking down other tabs or the entire browser.
Google accidentally revealed the project a few days ahead of its official release when it accidentally emailed to various media a 38-page comic book that covers the browser’s features.
Google is set to release a beta of Google Chrome for Windows today to 100 countries. Linux and Mac OS X versions are expected to follow a bit later. Until the browser is out, here is the link to the comic book that introduces it.