Following the release of some publicity materials one day early, Google has announced that it is developing an open source web browser based on the existing Webkit rendering engine, currently used by Apple’s Safari browser. The Google Chrome browser is described as having features that include:
- Each tab runs as a completely separate process and is sandboxed from the rest of the operating system.
- Uses an advanced JavaScript engine with on-the-fly machine language compilation and advanced garbage collection for better JavaScript performance
- Built in Google Gears support for offline web applications
- Support for streamlined mode without address bar or browser toolbar
- Other features such as anti-malware and phishing support
The features dealing with JavaScript, tabs, Google Gears and streamlined mode are critical. Together they improve the performance, stability and user interfaces of Google’s numerous browser based applications such as Google Docs and Gmail. Google is not trying to replace Internet Explorer or Firefox; they want to replace Microsoft Office.
Several questions exist: Can Google get any outside developers to work on Google Chrome or will OSS developers feel it is a distraction from Mozilla Firefox and other Mozilla projects? How will Adobe react? This push to use JavaScript in the browser is an attack on its Flash-based rich internet application plans. Finally what will Microsoft’s response be? Can they argue that now that Google has its own browser that Microsoft should be able to modify Internet Explorer in ways that promote Microsoft properties over others?