It seems like after all of the years of rumours about a Google Browser, it looks looks like it’s finally happening!
The project is called Google Chrome and is due for release or announcement on Wednesday.
A comic book was created to virally promote the new browser and Phillip Lenssen has scanned it in for all to see at http://blogoscoped.com/google-chrome. (If the site’s down atm then give it a while as his server is struggling.)
There are some interesting features in the new browser:
- Per-tab processes, so if one tab crashed, the rest of your browsing is uneffected.
- A brand new javascript engine called V8 to speed up modern web applications.
- Fully open source encouraging people to add to it.
- An auto-completion url bar which will look in your history, sounds similar to Firefox’s Awesome bar.
- A dynamic start page showing links to your most visited pages and search results, much like the new firefox extension, Auto Dial.
- Built-in phishing and malware protection like what is found in Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 8.
A lot of the features sound like they are just getting the getting the best bits of all of the browsers, but the per-tab processes sounds very very good! I don’t think the browser will have a market share, but then Google has such a big influence on the web and so many web properties who knows!
When I first saw the comic I thought it was a very elaborate hoax, maybe someone’s starting Septemeber fools day? But there are a few things which make it look like it is genuine, the following sites give different results to what you’d expect if this wasn’t real:
- Google.com/chrome – Gives a plain page saying Not Found – Error 404, whereas a normal error page on Google takes you to a search page saying the page doesn’t exist.
- code.google.com/p/chrome/ – Gives a 403 forbidden error, instead of either showing a project page or giving 404 error if the project doesn’t exist.