Google Launches Web Browser

Google is launching a new open source web browser which will see it go up against Internet Explorer and Firefox.

The browser, called Chrome, will be available for download from tomorrow morning.

Writing on the Google blog, Sundar Pichai, Google’s VP product management, and Linus Upson, engineering director, said: “We realised 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.”

Recent figures suggest that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer currently has around 58% of the browser market, followed by Firefox with 19%.

John Lilly, chief executive of Mozilla, wrote on his blog: “It should come as no real surprise that Google has done something here – their business is the web, and they’ve got clear opinions on how things should be, and smart people thinking about how to make things better.

“Chrome will be a browser optimised for the things that they see as important, and it’ll be interesting to see how it evolves.”

Google: 020 7031 3000 www.google.co.uk