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Google Plunges Into Browser Market
9/2/2008
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Just days after Microsoft released the second beta of Internet Explorer 8, Google unexpectedly made what could be its largest assault on Redmond to date--the release of its own Web browser.
Google today released the first beta of its new browser, which it calls Chrome, and is set to offer preview releases in 100 countries. In so doing, Google said it hopes to shake up a browser market now dominated by Microsoft's IE, Mozilla Foundation's Firefox, and, to a lesser extent, Apple's Safari.
Chrome takes advantage of Apple's WebKit, the open source rendering engine also used in Google's forthcoming Android platform, which the company is rolling out for mobile handsets. Google is also using components of Mozilla Firefox, among other open source components. The company said it will also share its code with the open source community.
Google said WebKit makes more efficient use of system memory than other Web rendering engines. "We believe we can add value for users and, at the same time, help drive innovation on the Web," said Sundar Pichai, Google's vice president of product management and Linus Upson, the company's engineering director, in a blog posting announcing Chrome.
Google describes Chrome as a browser with a simple interface, in the same model as its search UI. However, the company argues that its open source browser components can run complex Web apps faster and more reliably than others.
Among other things, Google says Chrome isolates each browser tab in its own sandbox, preventing the entire browser from crashing when one page fails, although rivals have taken similar steps to isolate tabs within browsers. Google also says Chrome offers a more powerful JavaScript engine, which it calls V8. According to Google, the V8 JavaScript engine examines the JavaScript source code and instead generates machine code that can run directly on the processor.
Analysts today said Google faces an uphill battle in making a dent in the browser market. "I don't think there will be a big market impact unless there are radical performance differences," said Forrester analyst Redwan Iqbal in an e-mail interview. "There is little pain for Chrome to heal."
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