Google puts Chrome on browser options

Google Tuesday released its own browser with a revved-up Java Script engine called V8 designed to make its online applications run better and with an eye toward eventually taking on Microsoft on the desktop.

Google made the beta of Chrome available on its Web site and said it would also be offered as an open source project called Chromium.

The company released a comic book featuring its engineers in cartoon character form and detailing how Chrome aligns with an Internet that has grown from a collection of text-based pages to full-blown applications.

Google said Chrome will provide more speed, stability and security for Web users, and combined with Google Gears -- which allows users to take Web-based applications offline -- will offer Web applications that perform and function like desktop applications.

The attitude is another example of how Google and Microsoft are on a collision course as each moves from different ends of the computing spectrum.

But experts say in the short term, Chrome is about Google making its own Web applications such as Gmail run better.

“All those Web apps from Google make extensive use of the JavaScript,” says Ray Valdes, research director at Gartner. “The Google apps push the envelope of the modern browser. So now Google is offering a better envelope.”

The engine in that envelope is called V8, which compiles and executes JavaScript source code, handles memory allocation for objects, and garbage collects objects it no longer needs.

Google says V8 will eventually support a whole new class of Web applications that could not run in today’s browsers.
Chrome also uses the same rendering engine, called Webkit, that is in Apple’s Safari browser and that is used in Google’s Android software stack for mobile devices.

Google also has added a set of interesting features to Chrome, including browser tabs that operate as separate processes so the crash of one tab won’t wipe out all the others.

The address bar is combined with the search feature so the browser can help pinpoint where users want to go. Chrome also has a cloaking feature, much like the “porn mode” introduced with Internet Explorer 8, that does not record a user’s browsing history.

Mozilla CEO John Lily on his blog welcomed the competition from Google and said it should result in innovation.

He said Google is expanding themes of browser innovation developed over the past year including improvements in JavaScript performance, security and user interfaces.

He said collaborations with Google would continue on the technical side, such as the Breakpad crash reporting system, and on the product front, which has produced such things as anti-phishing and malware advancements now built into Firefox.

The introduction of Chrome comes at a time when Microsoft has just released the latest beta for Internet Explorer 8 and when the Mozilla Foundation has released Firefox 3.