Google Browser 'Chrome' Takes on Microsoft and Mozilla

Google is launching a beta version of its own Web browser today in more than 100 countries, the company announced yesterday in a blog posting.
The open-source browser, called Chrome, first appeared on an unofficial Google blog in the form of a comic book. "As you may have read in the blogosphere, we hit 'send' a bit early on a comic book introducing our new open source browser, Google Chrome," the company said in the official announcement that appeared late Monday afternoon after the Internet began buzzing about the comic-book site. The blog posting was by Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management, and Linus Upson, engineering director.

The browser window is "streamlined and simple," they said, describing in words what can be seen visually at the unofficial blog, Google Blogoscoped. "To most people, it isn't the browser that matters. It's only a tool to run the important stuff —the pages, sites and applications that make up the Web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go," the blog posting said.

Chrome will run Web applications "much better," they wrote, with tabs kept in an isolated "sandbox," which will prevent "one tab from crashing into another and provide improved protection from rogue sites." Better speed and responsiveness are also part of Chrome, which features "a more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, to power the next generation of Web applications that aren't even possible in today's browsers."
Components from Apple's WebKit and Mozilla's Firefox are part of the open-source Chrome, they said.

Mozilla to Get Google Cash for Three More Years

Mozilla has renewed an agreement with Google that pays the browser maker for assigning Google's search engine as Firefox's default.
"This agreement now ends in November of 2011 rather than November of 2008, so we have stability in income," said Mitchell Baker, currently the chairwoman of Mozilla.

Mozilla generates the bulk of its income from ties to Google, according to the company's latest financial results. For the 2006 tax year - the most recent numbers make public by Mozilla - 85 percent, or about $57m of the company's $67m in annual revenues for the year, came from Google.
Firefox assigns the Google search site as the default for the browser's search bar; users can, however, change that to a rival search site if they wish. The browser also defaults to a Google URL for its home page.
Mozilla and Google last inked a two-year deal in 2006 that was to expire in November.