Why Google launched Chrome

Why Google launched Chrome

Google's launch Tuesday of its Chrome Web browser is seen as the search giant's latest assault on Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500). The company has been developing Chrome for two years, but the timing of its jump into the browser wars is probably no coincidence given two seemingly small features recently offered by the latest browsers from Microsoft and Mozilla.

Internet Explorer 8, Microsoft's most recent update to its browser, lets people navigate the Net while hiding their Internet address and viewing history - sometimes called "porn mode."

While this privacy feature isn't exactly new to the browsing world, it is the first time Microsoft has offered it. And given that Microsoft has 72% of the browser market, that move is seen as a significant threat to Google, which attempts to pinpoint its search results to a user's interests.

"Google Chrome is partly a defensive move as Microsoft is incorporating functionality in new browsers that may block the collection of ad targeting information," Stifel Nicolaus analyst George Askew wrote in a note Tuesday.

Blocking, tackling
For Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) and Microsoft, the browser is the virtual box office of Internet search revenue. Searches create hits and hits create context and ultimately clicks. This is the big money flow in Google's $16.5 billion annual revenue stream.

Getting blocked from user information is certainly a critical turn for the search industry, but a recent move by Mozilla's Firefox goes even further by circumventing the search process all together.

In Firefox, users type a Web address, or URL, in the address box. With each letter typed the browser offers to complete the process by showing a list of sites the person has visited that correspond with the fragment of the word. For example, you want to go to Wikipedia and your first suggested destinations are Weather.com or Nintendo's Wii.

Some analysts predict it's only a matter of time before this auto-complete feature is added to Internet Explorer.

Google has been working on a browser for about two years, but, according to analysts, the company hadn't felt compelled to introduce it to the world. It's telling, given the squeeze in the search business and the competitive moves by the two browser giants, that Google would bring out Chrome now

A fresh take on the browser

At Google, we have a saying: “launch early and iterate.” While this approach is usually limited to our engineers, it apparently applies to our mailroom as well! 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. As we believe in access to information for everyone, we've now made the comic publicly available -- you can find it here. We will be launching the beta version of Google Chrome tomorrow in more than 100 countries.

So why are we launching Google Chrome? Because we believe we can add value for users and, at the same time, help drive innovation on the web.

All of us at Google spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends -- all using a browser. Because we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build.

On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. 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.

Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today's complex web applications much better. By keeping each tab in an isolated "sandbox", we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built a more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, to power the next generation of web applications that aren't even possible in today's browsers.

This is just the beginning -- Google Chrome is far from done. We're releasing this beta for Windows to start the broader discussion and hear from you as quickly as possible. We're hard at work building versions for Mac and Linux too, and will continue to make it even faster and more robust.

We owe a great debt to many open source projects, and we're committed to continuing on their path. We've used components from Apple's WebKit and Mozilla's Firefox, among others -- and in that spirit, we are making all of our code open source as well. We hope to collaborate with the entire community to help drive the web forward.

The web gets better with more options and innovation. Google Chrome is another option, and we hope it contributes to making the web even better.

So check in again tomorrow to try Google Chrome for yourself. We'll post an update here as soon as it's ready.