Mixed Signals
Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise
Monday 1 September 2008, 6:44 PM
Google Chrome - an open source browser, and more...
Google's using its infrastructure to throw millions of pages at Chrome a week via Chrome Bot, an automated test system. which selects the most popular millions to use - after all, Google does have a shrewd idea what people actually look at online. It also uses the open source Webkit rendering engine, which it shares with Android, and a new virtual-machine based Javascript compiler from a Danish group called V8. This is effectively seperate from the rest of Chrome, and Google says that it hopes other people will pick it up and use it - and the rest of the code, as they see fit.
"As excited as we are at building Google Chrome, it's important to allow ALL browser to become more powerful", the comic states. "to keep evolving with the Web and continuing to build a SOLID FOUNDATION for modern Web applications. We owe a great debto to other open source browser projects -- especially MOZILLA and WEBKIT. This is our contribution, and we hope people will take some those ideas, too; challenge them, build on them, and keep moving the web FORWARD."
The comic itself goes into some detail on the internal structure of the project, and is licensed under Creative Commons.
UPDATE: Yes, it's all true. Beta may be available to download today. Logo looks like a cross between Windows Office (cheeky!) and a Simon game. Comic leaked out early. Windows version first, Mac/Linux soon after.
PreviousComments on this post
Well the comic makes for an interesting read and can be easily understood by standard users and techie minded alike. Nice work.
I really like the ability to move a tab between windows, it's a great I've always wanted since I've started using tab browsers. Glad to see it's included in Chrome.
I thought that google would want to promote their own igoogle homepage rather that have an overview page in the browser. I'm not a big fan of these "speed dial" type of pages and have avoided using it in Opera whenever possible.
There are features that are becoming standard, such as the ability to re-open closed tabs (now included in IE8).
Any browser that fails to match "user friendly and accepted/wanted" functionlity of other browsers, are taking a big risk if they leave it out.
This is a rather big step in the world of Google previously the source of attacks were purely web-based. Moving into the browse domain brings with it a whole new range of problems and hurdles to overcome.
Could this be the start of Browser Wars three-point-oh?
"We are so, so happy with Google Chrome," mumbled Mozilla CEO John Lilly through gritted teeth. "That most of our income is from Google has no bearing on me making this statement."
http://notnews.today.com/?p=57
