Chrome: Google's Open Source Browser

[MattyBoy]

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In its most frontal and aggressive attack on Microsoft yet, sources with knowledge of the project said Google is preparing to unveil a new browser–ready for download to users as early as tomorrow–to try to loosen Microsoft’s iron grip on the most important piece of software to navigate the Internet.

In addition, Google Blogoscoped has published a comic book that Google is apparently using to explain the technical aspects of its open-source browser, which is called Chrome.

Here is a post on Google's official confirmation of the browser launch in 100 countries tomorrow, which was released on its blog this afternoon. It will only be in beta in Windows, but Google said Mac and Linux versions were coming soon.]

Before the Google-Microsoft battles felt more like a Cold War, mostly limited to Google (GOOG) poking at Microsoft (MSFT) via the development of small-scale Web-based software to compete with Microsoft’s dominant Word, PowerPoint and other such products and Microsoft’s thus-far unsuccessful attempts to break Google’s lock on the search market.

But with this move, which has been rumored since 2004, the war most definitely has gone red-hot, as Google aims to grab a chunk of Microsoft’s huge browser market share, which various surveys put at about three-quarters of the market.

The efforts to do this have been well known within the company for a long time, although the timing of its launch has not.

But Google Fedexed the comic too early to Blogoscoped–who is based in Germany–and possibly others, which makes BoomTown really appreciate express mail more than ever.

(I have posted the comic book here, which I also obtained and Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski has written a quick executive summary of it.)

Sources said Google has made the move to create and distribute a browser over worry about what new features in IE8 could do to its search business.

That includes privacy changes that could prevent it from collecting information related to the effectiveness of its adds, quick-linking to Microsoft mapping and other offerings and a more robust search bar that is also more Microsoft-centric.

To combat Microsoft’s IE dominance in recent years, Google has been backing Mozilla’s Firefox browser, which grew out of the ashes of the once-powerful, now-irrelevant Netscape browser like a phoenix to grow to an astonishing 18 percent of the market.

That market share has climbed from 11 percent just two years ago–even against Microsoft’s IE juggernaut with 74 percent and Apple’s Safari browser with six percent.

Mozilla’s recent launch of Firefox 3 has a record-setting debut day in mid-June, with 8.3 million downloads of Firefox 3 in 24 hours.

Google recently renewed its deal with Mozilla that puts its search engine as homepage and search bar default to 2011. Google then pays Mozilla royalties for Google ad clicks that come from Firefox searches.

(Here’s a recent post I did about a visit I made to Mozilla’s HQ, right around the corner from Google, as well as a video interview I did with its CEO John Lilly.)

But obviously Mozilla’s efforts were not enough for Google, which clearly has decided it must own and distribute a browser, especially since it has become the most significant piece of software related to the Internet and the fulcrum on which most of Google’s business lies.

In other words, it is declaring the browser critical to its future and, in that regard, it is entirely right.

source ( kara.allthingsd )

blogoscoped

[opaper]

Kara at All Things D and Phil at Google Blogoscoped predict a Google Browser soon, maybe as soon as tomorrow, that is open sourced, with an intelligent "omni" search/address bar , a multithreaded javascript engine called v8, and tabs on the top of windows. Part of their source material includes a comic which explains its design.

Today there was a comic book in my mail, sent by Google and drawn by no less than Scott McCloud, creator of the classic Understanding Comics. Within the 38 pages, which I’ve scanned and put up, in very readable format Google gives the technical details into a project of theirs: an open source browser called Google Chrome. The book points to www.google.com/chrome, but I can’t see anything live there yet. In a nut-shell, here’s what the comic announces Google Chrome to be:

* Google Chrome is Google’s open source browser project. As rumored before under the name of “Google Browser”, this will be based on the existing rendering engine Webkit. Furthermore, it will include Google’s Gears project.
* The browser will include a JavaScript Virtual Machine called V8, built from scratch by a team in Denmark, and open-sourced as well so other browsers could include it. One aim of V8 was to speed up JavaScript performance in the browser, as it’s such an important component on the web today. Google also say they’re using a “multi-process design” which they say means “a bit more memory up front” but over time also “less memory bloat.” When web pages or plug-ins do use a lot of memory, you can spot them in Chrome’s task manager, “placing blame where blame belongs.”
* Google Chrome will use special tabs. Instead of traditional tabs like those seen in Firefox, Chrome puts the tab buttons on the upper side of the window, not below the address bar.

* The browser has an address bar with auto-completion features. Called ’omnibox’, Google says it offers search suggestions, top pages you’ve visited, pages you didn’t visit but which are popular amd more. The omnibox (“omni” is a prefix meaning “all”, as in “omniscient” – “all-knowing”) also lets you enter e.g. “digital camera” if the title of the page you visited was “Canon Digital Camera”. Additionally, the omnibox lets you search a website of which it captured the search box; you need to type the site’s name into the address bar, like “amazon”, and then hit the tab key and enter your search keywords.
* As a default homepage Chrome presents you with a kind of “speed dial” feature, similar to the one of Opera. On that page you will see your most visited webpages as 9 screenshot thumbnails. To the side, you will also see a couple of your recent searches and your recently bookmarked pages, as well as recently closed tabs.

* Chrome has a privacy mode; Google says you can create an “incognito” window “and nothing that occurs in that window is ever logged on your computer.” The latest version of Internet Explorer calls this InPrivate. Google’s use-case for when you might want to use the “incognito” feature is e.g. to keep a surprise gift a secret. As far as Microsoft’s InPrivate mode is concerned, people also speculated it was a “porn mode.”
* Web apps can be launched in their own browser window without address bar and toolbar. Mozilla has a project called Prism that aims to do similar (though doing so may train users into accepting non-URL windows as safe or into ignoring the URL, which could increase the effectiveness of phishing attacks).
* To fight malware and phishing attempts, Chrome is constantly downloading lists of harmful sites. Google also promises that whatever runs in a tab is sandboxed so that it won’t affect your machine and can be safely closed. Plugins the user installed may escape this security model, Google admits.

This looks like a very interesting project, and I think it can’t hurt to have more competition in the browser area. Google is playing this as nicely as possible by open-sourcing things, with perhaps part of the reason to try to defend against monopoly accusations – after all, Google already owns a lot of what’s happening inside the browser, and some may feel owning a browser too could be a little too much power for a single company (Google could, for instance, release browser features that benefit their sites more than most other sites... as can Microsoft with Internet Explorer). For now, until Chrome is released in a testable version, how much of the speed, stability and user interface promises will be fullfilled – and how much of the interface you’ll be able to configure in case you don’t like it – remains to be seen.

[Birdie]

Google Inc plans to launch a web browser called Google Chrome in a challenge to Microsoft Corp's Internet Explorer, the Wall Street Journal reported on its website on Monday. The browser launch is likely to be announced soon, the paper said, citing unnamed sources. Google did not immediately respond to calls and emails seeking comment.

[absolute55]

Google Inc (GOOG.O) is set to introduce on Tuesday a new Web browser designed to more quickly handle video-rich or other complex Web programs, posing a challenge to browsers designed originally to handle text and graphics.

Google officials confirmed news of long-rumored plans to offer its own Web browsing software, entitled Google Chrome, in a company blog post after it mistakenly mailed details of the plan to a Google-watching blog, called Blogoscoped.com.

The company statement calls the move "a fresh take on the browser" and said it will be introducing a public trial of the Web browser for Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) Windows users on Tuesday. Details can be found at http://tinyurl.com/gchrome/.
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The Internet search leader is also working on versions for Apple Macintosh users and for Linux devices, it said.

The launch of Chrome coincides with the recent introduction by arch-rival Microsoft of its Internet Explorer 8 last month. Internet Explorer holds roughly three-quarters of the browser market, followed by Mozilla's Firefox and Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) Safari browsers.

Google said its engineers have borrowed from a variety of other open-source projects, including Apple's WebKit and the Mozilla Firefox open-source browser. As a result, Google plans to make all of Chrome software code open to other developers to enhance and expand, the company said.

"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," Google Vice President of Product Management Sindar Pichai and Engineering Director Linus Upson said in a jointly authored blog post.

BUILT FOR SPEED

They said Google Chrome promises to load pages faster and more securely, but it also includes a new engine for loading interactive JavaScript code, dubbed V8, that is designed to run the next generation of not-yet-invented Web applications.

"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," Pichai and Upson wrote.

A Google spokesman declined to comment beyond the blog post.

Microsoft said the recently upgraded version 8 of Internet Explorer offered many new privacy and user control features.

"The browser landscape is highly competitive," Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, said in a statement.

"People will choose Internet Explorer 8 for the way it puts the services they want right at their fingertips, respects their personal choices about how they want to browse and, more than any other browsing technology, (it) puts them in control of their personal data online," Hachamovitch said.

John Lilly, chief executive of Mozilla Corp, the organization behind the Firefox browser, said Google, which has been his non-profit organization's biggest financial backer for several years, had recently renewed its support through 2011.

Mozilla recently introduced its own upgraded browser, Firefox 3, and has collaborated with Google on a variety of technical issues, including a system for reporting software crashes and to make software browsers more secure.

He said in a blog post that Mozilla and Google would continue to collaborate where it made sense for both organizations, but that Mozilla would also focus on its main mission of keeping the Web open and participatory by fostering its own commmunity-developed browser and other projects.

"With IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc -- there's been competition for a while now, and this increases that," Lilly wrote in commenting on news of Google Chrome.

GOING 'INCOGNITO'

Google confirmed that it had prematurely mailed a copy of a promotional comic book detailing plans for Chrome to a blogger. Blogoscope's writer, Philipp Lenssen, scanned and published the 38-page comic at http://blogoscoped.com/google-chrome/.

Chrome organizes information into tabbed pages. Web programs can be launched in their own dedicated windows. It also offers a variety of features to make the browser more stable and secure, according to the comic book guide.

Among Chrome's features is a special privacy mode that lets users create an "incognito" window where "nothing that occurs in that window is ever logged on your computer." This is a read-only feature with access to one's bookmarks of favorite sites.

Once available for testing on Tuesday, the browser can be downloaded at http://www.google.com/chrome/.

(Additional reporting by Daisuke Wakabayashi in Seattle, Paritosh Bansal and Nick Zieminski in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Jan Paschal)

[Jeffrey]

The rumor was based! Google has confirmed launch on September 2 08 beta version of its own open source web browser: Google Chrome. This morning, only the comic book presentation, unveiled on Monday by the designer McCloud on blogoscoped, is accessible to all.

"The browser interface is simple, stripped (...) As the homepage classic Google, Google Chrome is clean and fast (...) Under the hood, we realized the foundations of an engine capable well better manage the complexity of web applications today. Each tab is placed in a 'sandbox' isolated (...) We improved the speed and response time. We have also developed a more powerful engine JavaSript, V8, to manage the next generation of web applications, "said two engineers from Google's blog search engine.

Before adding: "Why we are launching Google Chrome? Because we believe we can add value to users, and at the same time, participate in the development of innovation on the web. "

Chrome should also incorporate Gears tool developed by Google, allowing access disconnected (offline) to an online service (online).

Undoubtedly Google Chrome will shake the browser market. More than Microsoft Internet Explorer, which dominates the market (IE being preinstalled on PCs running Windows), Firefox is expected to be competed directly, while the commercial subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation and the Mountain View firm has just renew the financial agreement uniting. Others, like Apple's Safari and Opera, will also have much to do to broaden their base of users.

Most of these actors cooperate. As Google has used components of WebKit Apple and Mozilla Firefox. Anyway, as a first step, the beta Chrome will only be available in Windows. Users of Linux and Mac OS X will have to wait

[need Tos]

In response to today’s news that Google is releasing its own browser, code-named Chrome, CEO of Mozilla Corp., the folks behind the fast-growing Firefox browser. My intention was to find out what Lilly thought about this development, especially since Mozilla has been viewed as close personal partner of Google’s.

The open-source browser maker depends heavily on a lucrative financial deal it has signed with the search company. The pair recently renewed the deal to last through 2011. Was Lilly worried about yet another browser in the market?

[opaper]

About four years ago there were all sorts of rumors that Google was getting ready to enter the browser wars with its own offering, most likely built on Mozilla's code. However, after years of nothing (and an increasingly close relationship between Mozilla and Google), many had thought that idea was dead. Apparently not. After some leaks of a comic book (a comic book?!?) detailing the new Google browser found their way to the web, Google quickly admitted that it is, indeed, getting into the browser business, releasing a brand new open source browser, called Google Chrome.

Rather than being built on Mozilla, as many expected, it's been built on top of WebKit, which is also the core of Apple's Safari browser -- but which Google was also using for its own mobile browser. In the end, this isn't all that surprising. While many will interpret it as Google trying to take on Microsoft in the browser market, in reality, this is probably a lot more about Google trying to help everyone move beyond the operating system market. As we first suggested four years ago when rumors of a Google browser first came around, Google knows that the way to beat Microsoft is to become the operating system for the internet, and you do that by relegating the actual OS obsolete. And, these days, the path to doing that is through the browser.

So, yes, this is a shot at Microsoft -- but not at Internet Exporer. It's a shot at Windows.

That doesn't mean Google Chrome will be successful, but a quick look at the features itself show that the features it highlights (being able to run apps separately, better memory management, etc.) are the sorts of things that allow people to make browser-based apps much more useful, rather than feeling the need to rely on client-side applications. People have predicted for years that we're getting closer to a world where all computing can be done over the network, and it looks like Google is trying to push that process right along.

[mauricio]

Mozilla CEO John Lily shared his thoughts on Google's new browser project, Chrome. "Mozilla and Google have always been different organizations, with different missions, reasons for existing, and ways of doing things. I think both organizations have done much over the last few years to improve and open the Web, and we’ve had very good collaborations that include the technical, product, and financial. On the technical side of things, we’ve collaborated most recently on Breakpad, the system we use for crash reports — stuff like that will continue. On the product front, we’ve worked with them to implement best-in-class anti-phishing and anti-malware that we’ve built into Firefox, and looks like they’re building into Chrome. On the financial front, as has been reported lately, we’ve just renewed our economic arrangement with them through November 2011, which means a lot for our ability to continue to invest in Firefox and in new things like mobile and services.

So all those aligned efforts should continue. And similarly, the parts where we’re different, with different missions, will continue to be separate. Mozilla’s mission is to keep the Web open and participatory — so, uniquely in this market, we’re a public-benefit, non-profit group (Mozilla Corporation is wholly owned by the Mozilla Foundation) with no other agenda or profit motive at all. We’ll continue to be that way, we’ll continue to develop our products & technology in an open, community-based, collaborative way.

With that backdrop, it’ll be interesting to see what happens over the coming months and years. I personally think Firefox 3 is an incredibly great browser — the best anywhere — and we’re seeing millions of people start using it every month. It’s based on technology that shows incredible compatibility across the broad web — technology that’s been tweaked and improved over a period of years.

And we’ve got a truckload of great stuff queued up for Firefox 3.1 and beyond — things like open video and an amazing next-generation Javascript engine (TraceMonkey) for 3.1, to name a couple. And beyond that, lots of breakthroughs like Weave, Ubiquity, and Firefox Mobile. And even more that are unpredictable — the strength of Mozilla has always come from the community that’s built it, from core code to the thousands of extensions that are available for Firefox.

So even in a more competitive environment than ever, I’m very optimistic about the future of Mozilla and the future of the open Web."