Google takes on Microsoft with launch of Chrome internet browser

Google is launching a new web browser today that will challenge Internet Explorer and Firefox.

The software, called Google Chrome, is designed to handle video-rich or other complex web programs more quickly than traditional browsers, which were first designed to handle text and graphics.

A beta version will be available to Windows users in 100 countries and the internet search leader said it was working on versions for Apple and Linux users.

'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's vice president for product management Sindar Pichai wrote in a blog post.

Google Chrome promises to load pages faster and more securely than rival browsers.

It also includes a new engine for loading interactive JavaScript code, dubbed V8, which is designed to run the next generation of applications that are still on the drawing board.
Chrome organizes information into tabbed pages and 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 a comic book guide that was released earlier than intended to a blogger who then posted it on the internet.

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.'

Google's engineers have borrowed ope-source code from a variety of projects including Apple's WebKit and the Mozilla Firefox open-source browser.

The company plans to make all of Chrome software code open to other developers to enhance and expand.

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.

John Lilly, Chief Executive of Mozilla said in a blog post that they would continue to collaborate with Google where it made sense for both organisations, but would also focus on keeping the web open by fostering its own commmunity-developed browser.

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's Safari browsers.

To view the user friendly cartoon that outlines Google Chrome visit: http://blogoscoped.com/google-chrome