Google hits the next phase in owning the entire web, by releasing their own browser called Chrome. You can get it at http://www.google.com/chrome/ and you can find out everything you need to know about it at http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/features.html
It's the first time I have seen that link, it looks like the Beta browser was released on Tuesday September 2, 2008 (September 3 here). If you can handle the crappy ads on computerworld, here is their ongoing news section about Google Chrome. Google being what they are, this has already caused a massive flurry of news stories in under 2 days!
First up, at the core of every browser lies a rendering engine and they chose to use WebKit which itself is a branch of libraries from KDE. But other than that this is pretty much a Google browser and they seem to have reinvented the wheel when it comes to browser software. Funnily enough the WebKit engine is what powers Apple's Safari, and already a bunch of Apple users are peeved because there is no version for Apple yet. KDE's KHTML is most widely used on Linux in Konquerer, another OS we can't get the browser for.
Considering that it's only available on Windows, that would reveal a couple of interesting facts. Most people at Google use Windows, because they built Chrome to make their own lives easier. Then the fact that it grabbed 1% of the overall browser market in 1 day proves everyone else in the world uses Windows.
Should you get it? If you are reading this because you are a CWS customer, probably not yet, it is a Beta and it is far too bug ridden at this point. If you've searched us out and you're a geek like us, then sure, it's a pretty awesome bit of kit and it is sure to have a massive impact on the Internet. If you're a web developer you have to get it to make sure your sites work.
I'm quite impressed that it pulled my Delicious buttons in, and there is also talk of the mega javascript engine and virtual machine Google has made for Chrome taking on Flash and Silverlight. I tried to switch to Opera and because it lacked support for things like shortcut buttons and has many quirky things I just don't like or can't get used to, I went back to IE7. I've made Chrome my default browser, and so far it's easier than Opera to switch to because Google made it behave more like IE, but I still keep clicking the IE icon for a web broswer to pop up.
