Google Chrome is a free web browser developed by Google that has about 1% share of browser market. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on September 2, 2008. The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or “chrome”, of web browsers.

Chromium is the open source project behind Google Chrome, and is released under the BSD license. It implements the same feature set, but has a slightly different logo.

History

Announcement

The release announcement was originally scheduled for 3 September 2008, and a comic by Scott McCloud was to be sent to journalists and bloggers explaining the features of and motivations for the new browser. Copies intended for Europe were shipped early and German blogger Philipp Lenssen of Google Blogoscoped made a scanned copy of the 38-page comic available on his website after receiving it on 1 September 2008. Google subsequently made the comic available on Google Books and their site and mentioned it on its official blog along with an explanation for the early release.

Other Information

• Developed by Google
• Initial release September 2, 2008 (2008-09-02)
• Stable release none (n/a) [+/−]
• Preview release 0.3.154.9 (30 October 2008; 10 days ago) [+/−]
• Written in C++ and Assembly
• OS Microsoft Windows (XP SP2 and Vista); Mac OS X and Linux in development.
• Size 8.43 MB[1]
• Available in 43 languages
• Development status Beta
• Type Web browser
• License Google Chrome Terms of Service (Google Chrome executable),
• BSD license (source code and Chromium executable)

Links

• Download Google Chrome
• Official Website