Monday, September 1st, 2008...9:07 pm - Brett Robertson
Google’s own web browser; World meet Chrome!
Google is developing its own web browser based on the open source framework webkit engine, which is also used by Apple for its Safari web browser and interconnecting applications such as mail, dashboard and itunes.
The browser called Chrome (Page not available to the public yet as of 02/09/08) has been built with speed, security and compatibility in mind, giving the best user experience to date. One of its unique features is individual application window processes, which means each browser window or tab runs its own process, thus if you open a page and the JavaScript in it hangs the page, the other pages or tabs you have running wont lock up and you can continue browsing. This feature is very similar to the Darwin underpinnings of Mac OS X, where an application can launch and hang, but not bring down the entire system.
To introduce this new browser, and Google being as innovative as they are, commissioned illustrator Scott McCloud to draw a 38-page comic book about the project, and distribute it under a Creative Commons license. The result is a very readable, fascinating way to learn about the new browser.
For web developers, Chrome will include strong Gears integration, and a JavaScript virtual machine that generates super-fast machine code out of JavaScript instructions. For end users, it will include a new start page that lists the last several pages and search terms you’ve used. It also includes a private browsing mode.
Currently there is no public version of Chrome available, but a Windows version is launching tomorrow, Wednesday 3rd September, with a Mac and Linux version shortly after.
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