Is it real. Or something just comical?

So in the same week Google extends the contract with Mozilla and also announces that.

Seems interesting let's see where it ends :)

Damn. They just ripped off Opera!

> Is it real.

I've asked Google for a release date and will post should their be anything...

Boooom

I love the way they've presented this and promoted it virally offline. I wonder how many others received this comic.

Most (if not all ?) of those functionnality are already in Opera or accessible by extending Firefox. But, a new open source browser may be an interesting thing. Firefox has made great strides for the Web, may Google do the same.

looks cool, google always buy something, and than they create something similliar ... skype – google talk, wikipedia – Knol ... and now its mozilla firefox – google Chrome ?

The comic is targeted to journalists, I presume. What a great way to communicate complex ideas! Scott's illustrations are very clever.

The design of the browser is impressive, and is obviously quite mature. It can't be long before we see a beta.

The inverted tabs are logical, because the state that belongs to each tab is now shown under that tab. Inverted tabs have been considered before by other browser makers, but the problem is finding a good place for the menu and/or bookmark bars – and these drawings give away no clues.

I'm looking forward to Chrome very much.

I am thinking about something : is there a link between the name Chrome and the fact that a big part of Mozilla browsers configuration is stored in a file called chrome.js ? Maybe a curious coincidence.

After reading the comic* I this that Chrome this is both Google Browser and Google OS.

It works offline and every tab (that's every web app) runs on a different process so if it crashes only that tab (app) crashes not teh whole browser. Just like an OS.

* C'mon is Scott McCloud!

I wonder if Calendar / GMail integration with Gears will be released at the same time as Chrome?

It's curious that with at least two Firefox developers on the team (Ben Goodger and Darin Fisher) they are using Webkit as the rendering engine.

Also I don't think that the use of the word chrome is related to Mozilla. Chrome is just another way of calling a GUI (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_int ...)

Pau Tomàs: From the user's point of view, you are correct. If a user's computer can support Chrome, the user can do all their computing without needing to leave Google products and services.

Of course, an underlying operating system still must exist to provide the kernel, filesystem, device drivers etc.

I wonder if Steve Ballmer knew this was coming?

I loved the way comic is created.
is there a tool to help you create comic similar to this one? I'm looking for something which can help me make my own characters and comics out of it.

PomCompot: Chrome is traditionally what the interface of a web browser is called, the toolbars, scrollbars, etc. For example,
urbandictionary.com/define.php ...
It's not specific to Moz.

Roger Browne: Inverted tabs are logical in the context of the browser, but will not play nicely with the conventions of the OS (at least, I can't visualize it blending in OS X, Ubuntu, or Vista). Which is why FF, Opera, and Safari have made the choice to extend the tabs down.

What a comic book can't show us is the rendering engine. Will it be gecko? It might be interesting if it was (like the javascript vm) a new product, provided that it had impeccable standards support. Anything else would be, well, evil...

The 404 page for google.com/chrome is very different from any other 404 page, such as google.com/chrom
I've noticed this with other services before they were released (such as presently).

"Anything else would be, well, evil..."

Hyperbole much? Anyway, according to the comic it'll use Webkit as a rendering engine.

Webkit > gecko but honestly this is just going to split the shareage of firefox alone, and lead to more IE dominance. IE users at this point are just clueless.

Unless there's a merge?

Google Chrome is pretty cool name. It sounds like something out of the William Gibson Sprawl trilogy.

Yeah, known about this for awhile, via a few google employees.

Scan in the comic already so we can read it!

> Which is why FF, Opera, and Safari have made the choice to extend the tabs down.

You musn't have looked close enough. Opera's tabs extend upwards and are places above the address bar.

and it would be in beta for........................how long?
believe it when i see it.

"link removed" is rather futile in today's world of RSS feeds and readers.

Michiel, I think it's quite an effective way to throttle bandwidth (since the aim isn't to stop traffic to the pages altogether, but merely to delay visits whilst action can be taken to reduce the load). Besides, most RSS readers update RSS feeds when they're updated, so readers late to the party won't have seen the link yet anyway...

Pau Tomàs: I also immediately thought of the renewal of the Mozilla deal and can't help but think this must somehow be related because I can't see them trying to cannibalize on the Firefox marketshare.

Reto Meier: It seems possible that they've not rolled out Gears for Gmail for so long because they were busy setting it up for this. Because otherwise I'm still quite surprised at how slowly they've rolled Gears out across their services. I can't recall if it's out for Calendar now, or if that still remains.

Am I the only one not excited by this?

Google is yet again branching into areas which are out of their expertise and losing focus on their core business. I expect a mediocre product, which may or may not contain AdSense, and will almost certainly inappropriately track user behavior.

Furthermore, as a web developer, I find this extremely frustrating. This is yet another browser I'll have to test in. Why couldn't they just build onto Firefox like everyone else?

> Instead of traditional tabs like those seen in Firefox

Actually tab-based browsing was pioneered by Opera, and these traditional tabs have address bar below them ;)

Got a link to the comic?

According to Wikipedia, Opera was not the first, but rather something called IBrowse.

code.google.com/p/chrome/ returns an 403 error, not a 404.

> Yeah, known about this for awhile, via a few google employees.

Pity we will have to let them go since they can't keep their mouth shut.

> "link removed" is rather futile in today's world of RSS
> feeds and readers.

Agreed, but as Tony says I just wanted to win some time while working on better improvements (and I was only able to edit the post, I can't connect via FTP since the server is stressed...). Still working on it right now...

[Edit: first measurements have now been taking, the comic is restored at the moment... I'll keep monitoring the server...]

I'm quite excited by this...
Non-sandboxed tabs are a daily irritation for me in Firefox; I may have 20 tabs open and then Firefox starts getting really slow and using up all the CPU but I have no way of finding out which tab is misbehaving, so I have to kill them all.
A web browser with a separate process per tab is an idea the time for which has come. The combination of Webkit with a (presumably) good JavaScript VM sounds sensible. I hope they'll manage to deal well with Flash also.

More compatibility hell for us front end developers....

I would like to see Google also develop a mobile browser that can be deployed to multiple OS platforms ... yes it may stem any potential cross-over users to the Android mobile platform, but it'd be nice to have something better than SkyFire, IE Mobile, Opera Mobile ... just dreaming here, especially since Fennec won't be released anytime soon.

Wow, the Windoze world is getting a private surfing feature in their browser. Sad.
Aside from that, I'm excited about this browser from Google.

Sounds interesting. This will bring revolution in the browser market. What will happen to firefox, which runs with the support of Google?

Just great. Another browser to support...

Lots of interesting stuff there, including the minor item of sending hardcopies of this to journalists before announcing on the web. The scan says that the comic is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND but the scan itself doesn't seem to sport a license notice. Was that given elsewhere in the package sent to journalists?

I wonder how many were sent? Seems like a possible instant collectors' item. :)

 blogoscoped.com/forum/139142.h ...

Nothing, they just extended the deal to 2011.

Oops, I see that (courtesy of Coral) that they do get around to telling us it's really Webkit-based. All in all, it sounds good, though I see there's no mention of extensions (which are both the greatest strength and weakness of FF).

I realize Opera's tabs are above the location bar, but I was responding to the cartoony windows with no title bar, which wouldn't be consistent with most OSes / window managers (though I see that in the gmail discussion they show a tabless browser with a titlebar).

Also, it can only be a mobile browser for Android. After all, Android should be coming soon

It's really, really fast. Really awesome.

> The scan says that the comic is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND but
> the scan itself doesn't seem to sport a license notice. Was that
> given elsewhere in the package sent to journalists?

Mike, here's the cover and back cover scan now... on the back cover you can see the Creative Commons license (nothing else but the comic was included in the package... the comic is roughly DIN-A-5 size):

blogoscoped.com/google-chrome/ ...

blogoscoped.com/google-chrome/ ...

excited by this option. need a better tool fast.

Very interesting. This sounds like an interesting additional browser to look at with regard to standards-mode, careful integration, and clean architectural boundaries for performance and for reliability.

I look forward to more information on the browser itself.

The comic book is a very nice present from Google. It seems that nobody else received it, even though the project should be significant for Google.

Opera has all that stuff already. Big deal google.

Kara Swisher from All Things Digital quotes some anonymous sources "with knowledge of the project":
kara.allthingsd.com/20080901/g ...

Funny (or just lame of me to notice) that the tab being closed on page 6 is memoryhog.net, which Google acquired (for this comic I guess) on August 14th. Gary Price noted this domain acquisition in this post when it happened: blogoscoped.com/forum/138759.h ...

Why do I feel like they are eating Mozilla's lunch and paying the bill? Can this be good for Firefox? Seems like Google is the Borg, absorbing everything near them in the name of the user.

"Opera has all that stuff already. Big deal google. "

Except, you know, the major architectural differences.

How did you get this in the mail today, a federal holiday?

Unless I don't know what I'm talking about and you're Canadian or something...

... or German :P

All the premature hate in here is awesome! Good work guys!

Seriously though, this is fantastic to hear and I'm looking forward to giving it a try when it's released.

A couple points to the people that don't get it:

"Another browser to support from a front end standpoint argument" – It's WebKit based. If it works in Safari it'll work in Chrome.

"Opera has all that stuff already" – Seriously? Come on. Opera doesn't have V8, sandboxing, or separate processes per tab, to the best of my knowledge.

"No extension" – I took the plug-ins section in the comic to also include extensions, but I may be mistaken on that one.

Anyway, great article, and excited to see what comes of this.

Brian, as Pau indicates, yes I'm German.

Joshua Jenkins: I think that with plugins they mean Flash, Java and things like that.

I can see Gears being the "Extension system" of Chrome since, according to the comic it'll be used to much more than supor offline browsing (it says something like "making developers life easy"). Also with Aaroon Boodman involved maybe we can expect some Greasemonkey love.

Please please please let us not have tabs above the address bar. That's just perverted.

is it just me, or does the logo remind you of a pokeball?

... oh, and Kara Swisher in above linked post says Chrome will be "ready for download to users as early as tomorrow". Well let's see, I don't have any confirmation from Google in regards to a release date yet.

Separate process per tab sounds nice. However if window managers were better in Gnome, KDE and Windows it wouldn't be necessary.

Hopefully one day, every application will support tabs through the window manager instead of coding it your self.

"Another browser to test in".... cry me a river. Evolve or die.

After reading comics, to me as a web developer it seems as a "browser finally made right" (tm)

Artist Scott McCloud chimed in with a blog post:
smccloud.livejournal.com/15488 ...

By the way, huge thanks to Philipp for scanning and presenting this so nicely. You're awesome, and damn good at what you do.

"before the official launch date of this Wednesday." Hé hé hé ^^

I haven't dug into the comic: do we know if Windows, Mac, and Linux will all be supported?

This will be great. Webkit is simply superior to Gecko or IE and is already taking over the mobile web. Unfortunately, Safari's interface and performance aren't great.

Mozilla will have to step up. They already lag in underlying engine; Opera wins on features. Mozilla's major strength is add-ons, and most eventually weigh the app down. But all in all, they'll probably herald it as good initially because no matter what it will put the most pressure on Microsoft.

I don't get the people saying: ooh, Google just renewed the deal with Mozilla, something's fishy. It's not as if Firefox would have chosen a different search engine to default to or passed up the lucrative Google deal just because they were going to compete. Apple gladly has a similar deal.

1) Javascript is used to place targeted ads.

2) Passing javascript between browsers allows for better targeting ads.

3) Better targetting means better sellng ads.

4) Better selling ads means increased revenue.

5) More revnue means inceased stock prices.

6) Increased stock prices mean happier stock holders.

[signature removed]

> Funny (or just lame of me to notice) that the tab being
> closed on page 6 is memoryhog.net, which Google
> acquired (for this comic I guess) on August 14th.

I wonder if they tried to buy www.wtf??.com as seen on page 3 too... ;-)

And someone has only just snapped up alreadyrank.com and attheveryleast.com as seen on page 10!

Please G, please no!! Not one more browser (to test with)!!!

Wow sounds great!! I cant wait till it comes out
P.S Im a happy Googler :)

Is there any word on other aspects of privacy? Will Chrome, for instance, pass info to advertisers?

I wonder how they are going to combine it with iGoogle since these are two different concepts. The new browser seems to let you manage everything on the frame while iGoogle is build to inner management (also has tabs and search box). Will see! I'm going to research more and write on my blog about this emboodo.com [unlinked as link not directly relevant at this time]

gizmodo.com/5044032/chrome-goo ...

Featured on Giz

For those who are already complaining about another browser to support, it's worth noting that the web is designed to conform around standards. It is only because of greater browser diversity since 2004 that the browser market is not totally locked down by the idiosyncrasies of IE 6 even today. If Chrome delivers on its promises of speed, security and stability, then it will soon command the market share to enforce the common web standards more forcefully than they are now. (Some joke that Firefox's best release was IE 7, but it's true.)

And, the advantages of their fundamental design changes will likely force other browser makers to adopt similar philosophies to compete. Luckily for everyone, with Chrome and V8 being opensource from the outset, they'll have a giant headstart in transitioning their own codebase or making their own forks that introduce newfangled features.

This is an exciting announcement that will benefit competition, innovation, billions of web users and, ultimately, web developers.

Oh come on, it's not really another browser to test in. It uses WebKit, and should render more or less exactly like Safari.

Page 13. Pls. compare the size and shape of Germany...

I only noticed the words "Windows" and "Vista" relating to OSs it would run on. Hopefully they will release Linux/Mac versions as well.

Part of me is exicted about "Chrome" but part of me is wondering what effect this will have on Firefox :(

"Oh come on, it's not really another browser to test in. It uses WebKit, and should render more or less exactly like Safari."

No, this is really another browser to test in. It will use WebKit, but not necessarily the same version of WebKit used by Safari at any given time. JavaScript code, meanwhile, will run in a completely different VM than Safari's.

yay – another browser.

Prediction: Google adds extensions for "making Web 3.0 easier" tried to attract developers, block our IE8 and Firefox... oh wait, didn't this already happen in 1997?

google.com/trends/hottrends?q= ...

exploding on Google Trends.

[EDIT-added;]
and here:

news.google.com/?ncl=124159505 ...

 blogoscoped.com/forum/139142.h ...

me too, I'm getting a new MacBook whenever they are announced, and i NEED this...the only problem is...Firefox Users like plug-ins.

my Favourite browser to use is Safari, but I stick with Firefox because of Plug-ins/Add-Ons

Of course, Chrome is, at this point trying to take on IE, not Firefox, but wouldn't the web be so much better under this 1 browser, how does Google plan on making the whole web so perfect like they see to be trying with this browser. I mean, will the API's and Open Source stuff work in non-webkit based browsers?

Will other browsers be able to take all these features on board, and not mess them up? 9I'm looking at IE's insertion of Firefox's features here)

If you could update the blog post to say that the official launch is on Wednesday that would be great. The comic book author says so himself on his blog: smccloud.livejournal.com/15488 ...

If sandboxed tabs are the biggest deal here, it's no big deal.

"Is there any word on other aspects of privacy? Will Chrome, for instance, pass info to advertisers?"

That was my first thought. In Firefox, Tools, Options, Privacy, Cookies, Exceptions, I have Google listed as "blocked." I would be very surprised if Google's browser allows that. And as I don't want Google storing my searches forever, that would be a deal-killer for me.

The whole project seems well thought out except for the part that allows applications to run in browser windows with missing browser components. The issue is it should 100% up to the USER if they don't want those things.

When you allow the site designer to hide UI, the user's rights are being diminished on their own machine(s).

Official post from Google:

<< As you may have read in the blogosphere, we hit "send" a bit early on a comic book introducing our new open source browser, Google Chrome. We will be launching the beta version of Google Chrome tomorrow in more than 100 countries. >>

googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/0 ...

(Added an update to the post.)

First beta version only for Windows :(

Ah looks like it will be Windows only to start with :(

<<This is just the beginning – Google Chrome is far from done. We're releasing this beta for Windows to start the broader discussion and hear from you as quickly as possible. We're hard at work building versions for Mac and Linux too, and will continue to make it even faster and more robust.>>
googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/0 ...

Looks like I'll be booting Vista tomorrow then (or Wednesday or when ever they release it)

as long as they don't port firebug i will never leave firefox.
That's just the best software invented since the web itself.

Let me be the first to come out in favor of the menu-less, titlebar-less, statusbar-less, "tabs above location bar" design.

First with the menu bars. They take up space. Not only that, but vertical space. It's most natural for us to read narrow columns of text, which makes taller pages faster and more comfortable for us to read. Even worse, we're now commonly accessing the web on smaller screens like phones, internet tablets and netbooks like the Eee PC I'm using as I write this.

While menubar location is consistent across most applications, on a browser most people won't use it that much compared to apps like Excel, Photoshop, etc. If you can remember the most basic keyboard shortcuts, you just about never need it. For me, I use the Hide Menubar extension so I can toggle it on and off with the Alt button. I've also dragged my bookmarks up onto it, so I can quickly access everything without sacrificing reading space. A small "Menu" button could do the same thing, stretching out when clicked, but shrinking when not in use.

I also like how they've dispensed with the top title bar. This just duplicates information in the tab titles while taking up more vertical space. Like Firefox, you can handle it by displaying the full title when hovering over a tab.They might need to include the familiar min/max/close buttons to reassure users, but this is a good idea.

Furthering this idea, you'll notice there's no lower Status Bar either. This could easily be replaced by displaying the link target as a pop-up infobox as Opera does. It makes a lot more sense to boot. Why should you have to look away from where you're going to click to see where it will take you?

With just a tab-sized group of buttons menu/min/max/close, possibly floating style, like the new tab button (+) in the comic, you've freed up dozens of pixels of vertical viewing room.

Forced scrolling is evil.
Don't be evil.

This new browser looks like Opera in the early stages.
I think Google could just buy Opera.com, instead of making a copy.

Interesting early announcement. So do you think the browser available in the Android OS will be Chrome Mobile? We already know it will be based on webkit.

Some questions to ponder though:

Do we REALLY need another browser?

What major features will this browser have that we can't get in any of the other more mature browsers currently available?

Does this cause an issue for Eric Schmidt and his seat on the Apple Board? Apple now has Safari for both Windows and Mac and its a webkit based Browser. Google is now jumping in with its own browser and what kind of waves will it make in regards to relations with Apple?

Lastly, Has anyone seen any strange webkit User Agent strings in their web logs that would point to this new browser?

Exactly. Just buy Opera and open-source it. A lot of the features are similar.

Laszlo, I wonder though if they support a tab-less option. For instance, I always turn off browser tabs as I'm already using the Windows task bar "tabs", which work consistent across all apps (and I hide the task bar, so it also saves space).

I hope the linux version of this browser is released with all the other os releases.

I'm sure the features and the UI are similar to Opera but the underlying architecture is something completely different. UIs are probably the easiest part of the browser to code, so buying Opera wouldn't have made sense as they'd have to rebuild it from scratch.

This is basically the OP web browser design (see IEEE security & privacy 2008) brought to life.

See also: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_C ...

Can I get GDrive along with this, too?

Matt Cutts' post:

mattcutts.com/blog/google-chro ...

Well I am quite thrilled.
Its 3:30 am in Indian and most Google lovers were just woken up by this sudden news in the middle of night!!! thats the kind of Aura Google generates.
Though most of our population is still stuck with the older version ofInternet explorer and without the knowledge of existence of Tabbed Browsing, it will be a welcome change from the Tabbed browsing (same in IE, FF..)

Google found an innovative idea and launched it innovative manner(the comic)
   I may even expect some linux and mac users to install Windows OS just to check the new version!!!!

and by the way its already tomorrow in india (ie sept 2nd)
so i am waiting for the beta version!!

Well, it is believable, for their 404 is different from their other ones for that page :/

Dude, I am telling you now, one day Google is going to rule the world! Period.

[Removed signature – Tony]

Great, another project from Google that will lie in perpetual beta like all of their other projects. Gee, will it have built-in ads too?

Btw GoogleChrome.com, .org and .net were registered in the past month or so by a domain proxy service. Likely will have registration and name server switched to Google sometime in the next couple of days.

dunno abt Google ruling the world but its ruling the Internet (almost equal to ruling world)
guess next will be their Operating system for computers or even new computers?!?!?....who knows...
they surely dont know abt STOP AND REST thingy.....

Hemant
the-techie.blogspot.com/2008/0 ...

Lots of us are asking about Linux... but the real question is, will it be available on Linux *without Wine*?

Philipp, I don't see a tab-less mode being as likely given the placement of the new tab "+" to the right of the tabs. The comic may just be a simplification of things,, but since it's being released today, I doubt the current layout varies much from what McCloud's drawn for us.

As for using the OS taskbar to display title info, for myself and most people I see using computers, that wouldn't work very well. With multiple programs, shortcuts and system tray icons already hogging so much taskbar space, any tab-happy user would quickly run out of room to read any titles. I'm staring at a string of favicons as it is.

Plus, with no titlebar, the tab serves to move the window, double-click to minimize, etc. Nevertheless, I'm sure tab-less mode would be an option, just not the default as it wouldn't serve the usage habits of most people.

The more I look at the tabs on top layout, the more I like it. Unlike Opera, they're really on top, which makes me want to reorder them, rip them apart into standalone windows and stack them again as need be. the design makes this the obvious thing to try, while clearly marking the active tab in a way that FF's default themes never did for me.

And news in the Official Google Blog googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/0 ...

please, I need vertical tabs which can be controled by wheels.

> any tab-happy user would quickly run out of room to read any titles

Not necessarily... when you put the task bar to the left hand side. Well, that's what I do. On the left side, the titles take away much less space as opposed to a horizontal layout. Of course, it's just one mode of browsing, depends on taste I guess...

I've created a torrent with a copy of these scans, for those who can't wait for the server to recover, or for google to post an official copy: thepiratebay.org/torrent/43741 ...

Google posted an official copy of the comic just now, adding an update to their blog post:

books.google.com/books?id=8Usq ...

And here's the Google Chrome service logo which Tony saw at Google Books just now:
books.google.com/pagead/imgad? ...

Ok .. just read the things. It's no new Opera. Some interface changes are similar, but the architecture is really different and necessary.

A mix of good with bad.
The good has been of course pointed out by Google and others, and it does look good, but the bad was only hinted at:

1. It seems that Google wants to control the privacy of the browsing to suck out as much as possible from targeted adds. We will see if some good privacy plug-ins will show up and work with the new browser.

2. Yet another browser diluting the free software community. After all these years there is still not a single browser/editor that supports well the MathML and SCV standards. There is Opera of course, but it is so buggy with MathML as to make it unusable.

3. Change to standard/custom user interface should be made only if they truly provide superior features, or the old one collides with new important features.

Moving Tabs to the top seems like some Chrome designer's private preference, and screw everybody else

4. The name Chrome. An unnecessary grab of name which has already an established meaning in the browser development community. Introduces unnecessary confusion. Bad style!

Paul Thurrott has screenshots, not sure yet how he got them:

community.winsupersite.com/blo ...

winsupersite.com/images/blog/g ...

I found the download page :
gears.google.com/chrome/

Yep. And there'll be a video:

+ Show video

(Added a 2nd update.)

update: there are many videos in that page, showcasing every aspect of the browser.

The code for downloading is not available, there's a javascript missing.
The URL may be made with this two strings
/update2/installers/ChromeSetup.exe
and it should start with
dl.google.com
But if you join them they don't work right now.

DOWNLOAD button does not work

very interesting.. Im not sure if it is good news or not so good news. can't wait to try it tomorrow...

from Google blog: "So check in again tomorrow to try Google Chrome for yourself. We'll post an update here as soon as it's ready..."

this is mad, Google should put the damn thing up for download allready, i wanna see it work :)

What no mac version for tomorrow??? :(

As it's 1:47am in Germany..I am wondering with PL will finally collapse.

[PS]
gears.google.com/chrome/?hl=en

the download button now redirects to google.com.