A beta version Google’s Web browser, Chrome, will be released tomorrow. It’s based on WebKit (the same engine used by Safari) and will feature a new JavaScript engine.
I’m kind of curious about the name. Is it a joke on the fact that the biggest difference between the major browsers these days is the chrome?
Is the new browser war between WebKit and Gecko (the Firefox engine)? I’m pretty excited by the renewed competition on the browser front, with Microsoft taking Internet Explorer seriously again, and Apple, Google, and Mozilla all competing hard in the browser market. (The fact that Opera continues to innovate and lead is notable as well.)
I’d also add that the heavy lifting on the standards advocacy front that has taken place over the years is what set the table for us to now be entering something of a golden age of Web browsers.
Update: John Resig on how Google Chrome will manage processes, and the implications thereof:
The blame of bad performance or memory consumption no longer lies with the browser but with the site.
Update: I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Scott McCloud’s comic book announcing the browser. It must be nice to have the resources to do this sort of thing.
September 2, 2008 at 6:26 am
Reading the comic, it hits me that Chrome is totally “Google OS”. Gears + The Cloud is the storage engine. Save interfacing with external peripherals, most of what people do these days is covered by webapps, so it would absolutely be possible to create a Linux + minimal window manager + Chrome stack and get most of your work done without needing anything else.