News on the Google front has been surprisingly quite over the past few months, but there's nothing like word of an all-new browser to generate some noise.
Today, the California-based search-engine giant has let slip its plans to launch its very own open-source web browser dubbed Google Chrome.
The browser, expected to be officially unveiled at a press conference later today, will be launched as a beta version available in over 100 countries. Google Chrome, touted as "a fresh take on the browser", has been built from scratch using the best elements out there, says Google.
Speed and reliability are at the forefront of discussion, and Google claims its browser will run today's complex web applications better. In addition to an all-new JavaScript engine, Google Chrome will also run each individual tab in an isolated "sandbox" - should one fail, your entire browsing session won't be sacrificed.
Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management at Google, 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.
Google Chrome will be available to Windows users at launch, though Mac and Linux versions are expected to follow. The browser is believed to offer a high level of integration with Google's web-based applications, but detailed information isn't yet available.
*Update* Further details are available in Google's official Chrome comic book: http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/
Source: official Google blog
