Google Chrome announced via … comic book

Brian Ambrozy (primesuspect) Google announces Chrome - their open source browser project

September 1, 2008 3:17 PM ET in News, , ,

Today Philipp Lenssen from Google Blogoscoped received a comic in the mail announcing Google’s open source browser named “Chrome”.

He scanned all 38 pages and put them up.

Google thanks Mozilla and Webkit by name in the comic, but it appears that Chrome uses Webkit’s rendering engine. One of their priorities is Javascript performance, and to that end they are developing a new Javascript engine from scratch called “V8″.

Other features include a simplified UI, a “privacy tab” similar to IE8’s “InPrivate” mode (nothing from that tab’s activity is logged), auto completion that doesn’t suck, and a “speed dial” similar to Opera. Blogoscoped has a thorough, nicely bulleted list of new features if you don’t feel like slogging through the 38 page commercial.

The question becomes: Do we really need another browser?

10 Comments:

  1. fatcat
    1 Sep '08, 7:32 pm

    gPhone with google android and gBrowser on google network, pay using google paypal and uses google accesories like the gHeadset or plug into the cigarette adapter on your gMobile running on gPetro bought from any gStore.

  2. airbornflght
    1 Sep '08, 8:34 pm

    I can get behind that. Anything to foster competition is a good thing.

  3. Thrax
    1 Sep '08, 9:03 pm

    I am curious as to how the Mozilla Foundation will respond.

  4. kryyst
    1 Sep '08, 10:29 pm

    Well guess I'll have something new to play with on September 2nd. Though I wonder if it'll be mass available or rolled out like when they release new features for gmail. Either way here's to looking for a new toy to play with.

  5. airbornflght
    1 Sep '08, 10:54 pm

    The google blog says it's gonna be released to public beta tomorrow, so I can't wait. I like google's approach as far as starting from scratch and isolating the processes. It seems like it should have happened earlier; I'm curious how it will perform though.

    And Thrax has a good point; but the release of chrome can only mean good things for the users. Because lets face it, internet explorer hasn't exactly been forcing innovation from firefox. I think chrome will. May the best app win.

  6. Thrax
    1 Sep '08, 11:18 pm

    Saying that Internet Explorer hasn't forced innovation from Firefox is something of a red herring. Firefox has numerous innovations inspired by their own desire to make a better browser:

    -SpiderMonkey
    -Enhanced AJAX support
    -Tabs
    -Doctype compliance
    -Integrated spell-checking
    -Integrated RSS aggregation

    And more...

    While I don't disagree that FOSS competition makes a better product for everyone, inferring that Firefox has been slow to improve because it has no competitors is, at best, disingenuous.

  7. fatcat
    1 Sep '08, 11:50 pm

    "Tabbed browsing is neither a Firefox nor Opera invention. Firefox and Opera fans, both, should step back from any claims to this invention.

    The first real tabbed browser with any significant presence on the web was Netcaptor, created by the very talented Adam Stiles way back in 1997.

    The next major implementation of tabbed browsing was the work of HJ van Rantwijk with MultiZilla, a tabbed browsing extension for Mozilla that copied pretty much everything that Adam had done in Netcaptor. HJ launched this extension for Mozilla back in 2000."

    who did tabbed browsing first

  8. Thrax
    2 Sep '08, 12:05 am

    I'm not saying that they invented tabs. I am saying that there are numerous things Firefox contains that has pushed the limits of or set the standard for what we expect from a mainstream browser.

  9. jared
    2 Sep '08, 1:21 am

    At the end of the day I always end up sticking with Firefox because of a handful of indispensable plugins anyways.

    Hopefully since it using webkit to render it won't be too much different from Safari, less it becomes just another damn browser to have to test on.

  10. MiracleManS
    2 Sep '08, 3:23 pm

    I'm with jared on this one. That's one of the questions here at work. Will it just become another browser that must be tested?

    I do know I'm a bit concerned on how it's going to handle some of the dynamic parts of the web, especially things like asp.net (which I work with). ViewState comes to mind.

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