The Chrome is out of the bag: Google's browser arrives Tuesday
This post has been updated.
We believe Kara Swisher of the All Things Digital blog was first to pick up on Google's official announcement: Chrome is real. Earlier today Swisher also had the first confirmation from sources that the launch of the browser was imminent. It's not an elaborate hoax. It's a bona fide product and it will be available for download Tuesday. We'll have a hands-on review as soon as we get some time to explore the product.
So why the mystery? Human error, it appears. According to the official Google blog, "At Google, we have a saying: 'launch early and iterate.' While this approach is usually limited to our engineers, it apparently applies to our mailroom as well! As you may have read in the blogosphere, we hit 'send' a bit early on a comic book introducing our new open-source browser..."
Our previous coverage: Google 'starting from scratch' with own browser, Chrome.
Here's the full announcement, from the Google blog:
A fresh take on the browser
9/01/2008 02:10:00 PM
At Google, we have a saying: "launch early and iterate." While this approach is usually limited to our engineers, it apparently applies to our mailroom as well! As you may have read in the blogosphere, we hit "send" a bit early on a comic book introducing our new open source browser, Google Chrome. We will be launching the beta version of Google Chrome tomorrow in more than 100 countries.
So why are we launching Google Chrome? Because we believe we can add value for users and, at the same time, help drive innovation on the web.
All of us at Google spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends -- all using a browser. Because we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. 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. 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.
On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn't the browser that matters. It's only a tool to run the important stuff -- the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go.
Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today's complex web applications much better. By keeping each tab in an isolated "sandbox", we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built a more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, to power the next generation of web applications that aren't even possible in today's browsers.
This is just the beginning -- Google Chrome is far from done. We're releasing this beta for Windows to start the broader discussion and hear from you as quickly as possible. We're hard at work building versions for Mac and Linux too, and will continue to make it even faster and more robust.
We owe a great debt to many open source projects, and we're committed to continuing on their path. We've used components from Apple's WebKit and Mozilla's Firefox, among others -- and in that spirit, we are making all of our code open source as well. We hope to collaborate with the entire community to help drive the web forward.
The web gets better with more options and innovation. Google Chrome is another option, and we hope it contributes to making the web even better.
So check in again tomorrow to try Google Chrome for yourself. We'll post an update here as soon as it's ready.
Posted by Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management, and Linus Upson, engineering director
Rafe Needleman writes about start-ups, new technologies, and Web 2.0 products, as editor of CNET's Webware. E-mail Rafe.
-->
Apple blows, and so do their fan boys.
http://www.sharkzonedesign.com
That said, we linux and mac users are in the same boat right now, except those of us on linux know how to use WINE, and the average mac user doesn't.
I'll be trying to run it the minute it's out, but we'll see how it goes..
This'll just act like safari, konqueror, and epiphany, don't sweat it. Just code using W3C standards exclusively and you'll be fine.
The biggest shock of all is that Google didn't make a version for Mac first? That's like waking up on a sunny weekend morning to find a terd on your lawn. Google shall be chastized for this in the valley.
Serious web developers around the globe shall be greeting "Chrome" with a sceptical eye. I repeat, if it is not W3C compliant, it will be considered complete trash and ignored.
You must not know very many people then, since both IE and FF have a way larger user base.
why are you so against this? innovation is a good thing. it seems some people either don't get the benefits of this move or are choosing to ignore it to keep things "simple". I am a programmer myself so I know the annoyances of making things compatible. But if this works out well, what google is trying to produce is something more reliable and compliant. That way we will finally have a standard. Someone is going to win, google or not, a standard code would get make "making things browser compatible" obsolete.
If it doesn't work out, Google Chrome will do its job and force the other browsers to improve their own code. Firefox does break quite often, and so does IE.
why are you so against this? innovation is a good thing. it seems some people either don't get the benefits of this move or are choosing to ignore it to keep things "simple". I am a programmer myself so I know the annoyances of making things compatible. But if this works out well, what google is trying to produce is something more reliable and compliant. That way we will finally have a standard. Someone is going to win, google or not, a standard code would get make "making things browser compatible" obsolete.
If it doesn't work out, Google Chrome will do its job and force the other browsers to improve their own code. Firefox does break quite often, and so does IE.
Oh and whatever resources Google does use, wasteful or not, is our choice to make? I think not.
So, why the whining?
Do you seriously think Google would throw out a rubbish browser as some twisted joke?
Are you guys real? Come on, at least read about the thing before you trash it.
1. Google wants to deliver desktop apps over the net.
2. Google needs a browser a for the gphone, instead of reling on open source.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dynzVHt6ocw&feature=related
x
B) Each tab in a seperate process within a browser - we already have that - its a window running on a desktop. Been around since xWindows did its first pop-up.
C) remembers your top ten searches - who cares? who keeps searching for the same stuff over and over?
C-2) Last browser pages in thumbnails. Oh yeah ... only if you have 20-05 vision, then maybe its useful.
D) The Comic Book - How CUTE AND SPUNKY!
E) New Java Script engine? See standards concern in A above. Oh and by the way, there is not a development tool yet that doesn't make browser side development NOT suck.
F) Oh someone accidently mailed it out early ... The trouble with the industry press is that they don't understand we are all adults in this business ... and supposedly we are all not that dumb to believe stories like that (Marketing guys note ... we aint your regular comsumer type).
G) OK ... question. Who is the biggest robber of other peoples ideas and does little innovation. Why Microsoft you say? Gee, I just love the line "We owe a great debt to many open source projects, and we're committed to continuing on their path", and they keep buying off the Mozilla guys to 2011. Thats why its so easy to read between the open source lines. They aint no "movement", they want to kill Microsoft by trying to hide an agenda behind License mubo jumbo, and bleet to the EU about big bad Redmond. When all along they look the other way while the new monster on the block (Google) has their way with them.
I don't know how the DOJ or EU can ever look a Judge in the eye again and claim there is no innovation in the software business. Especially when all the antitrust crap didn't even touch IE, except for allowing a user to change the default browser in WIndows.
The cats outa the bag folks!!
Go Google!!!!!!
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/01/first-public-screen-captures-of-google-chrome/
-
by davepullin
September 1, 2008 6:33 PM PDT
- I'll take competition over a monopoly ANY DAY. If there were a dozen popular browsers then competition with no more than 10% share each, then they would be forced to be compatible and responsive. We know from experience that a single dominant browser sits unresponsive for years. Gee it took MS six versions of IE to come up with Tab browsing, just after FF did it and started to get traction.
-
Reply to this comment
-
-
-
by kxmmxk
September 2, 2008 3:02 AM PDT
- Netscape came up with tabbed browsing way back at the beginning of the decade. It was years before MS put it in IE. What MS did in response to Firefox was actually release a new version of IE. Once they had 'killed' netscape they dropped development on IE because they had succeed in the task. The wanted to stop and/or limit the browser because it was usurping the power of the OS and their dominance over all things computers. With a good browser and the internet, it doesn't really matter what is your OS, and you can pick the one you want, instead of feeling like you need to get windows in order to do certain things. These days you can easily use Macs or Linux and do everything (a little less so with Linux). So you can pick what you prefer. So .... MS lost in the long run anyways.
-
-
See all 80 Comments >>I like Firefox, but as it happens there's a bug on V3 (fails on support dual monitors), so I can't use it any more ... I can't use IE7 because I don't want a new OS ... and so have no where to go. I hope Chrome is great because that's where I'm going tomorrow.