The Google Browser

Just on the heels of the IE8 beta 2 release and the new Firefox 3, a new player has entered the browser field, none other than - Google.

Yesterday Google announced the release of its very own open source browser in beta, called Chrome.

According to research firm Net Applications, IE holds approximately 73% of the market, while Firefox has around 19%, followed by Opera with under 1%.  Apple’s Safari holds about 6%.

Chrome has some similar features to the new IE 8 and Firefox 3, which include, an address bar auto-complete feature, search suggestions, and a privacy mode called “Incognito mode” (similar to IE’s InPrivate feature).  It’s also possible for a user to perform searches within the address bar by typing the URL of the search provider and hitting tab key. The interface is simple and maximizes monitor space to display a website.

According to Google, one of the main goals was to improve the browser’s performance for loading rich web applications faster.  In recent tests, the browsers performance is significantly faster when running JavaScript.  Learn more at http://www.google.com/chrome

Till now IE has helped Microsoft keep their foot in the web pool. If Google’s browser takes the market share that IE currently holds, Google will not just be the king of the search but ultimately reign in as the king of the web.

However, we have already noticed some technical issues with the browser accessing pages, which will likely be corrected before the official release of Chrome.  It will also be interesting to see how long before third-parties start offering Chrome compatible plug-ins.

Comments

• So far I haven’t run into many problems yet, but then again I haven’t yet tested it with many different web apps yet either.

  Although I don’t think it will replace IE any faster than firefox has. Off course it is google we are talking about, so it is definitely possible.

  Comment by Shameer — September 19th, 2008