Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google that uses the WebKit layout engine and application framework. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on 2 September 2008, and the public stable release was on 11 December 2008. The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or "chrome", of web browsers. As of December 2009, Chrome was the third most widely used browser, with 4.63% of worldwide usage share of web browsers according to Net Applications.
In September 2008, Google released the entire source code of Chrome, including its V8 JavaScript engine, as an open source project entitled Chromium. This move enabled third-party developers to study the underlying source code and help port the browser to Mac OS X and Linux. A Google spokesperson also expressed hope that other browsers would adopt V8 to help web applications. The Google-authored portion of Chromium is released under the permissive BSD license, which allows portions to be incorporated into both open source and proprietary software programs. Other portions of the source code are subject to a variety of open-source licenses. Chromium implements the same feature set as Chrome, but without Google branding and automatic updates, and it has a slightly different logo.
  Google Chrome 3.0 displaying Wikipedia on Windows 7 | |
| Developer(s) | Google Inc. |
| Initial release | September 2, 2008 |
| Stable release | 3.0.195.38 (browsesr), 4.0.245.1 (chrome frame) (2009-12-14; 40 days ago) [+/−] |
| Preview release | 4.0.249.78 (Windows Beta) 4.0.249.43 (Linux & Mac Beta) 4.0.302.2 (Windows, Linux, & Mac Dev channel) (2010-01-21; 2 days ago) [+/−] |
| Written in | C++, Assembly |
| Operating system | Windows (XP SP2 and later) Mac OS X (10.5 and later) Linux |
| Engine | WebKit (Based on KHTML) |
| Size | 10.5 MB (Windows) |
| Available in | 50 languages |
| Development status | Active |
| Type | Web browser |
| License | Google Chrome Terms of Service (Google Chrome executable), BSD (source code and Chromium executable) |
| Website | www.google.com/chrome code.google.com/chromium/ dev.chromium.org/ |
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 mentioned it on their official blog along with an explanation for the early release.
At a media and technology conference in July 2009, Eric Schmidt, Google's Chief Executive, said for six years he was against the wish of co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Pagethe of building an independent web browser and operating system. He explained that the company was small at the time and he didn't want it to endure bruising browser wars. He changed his mind after the founders hired some Firefox developers and built a demonstration of Chrome and became a huge supporter of Chrome and Chrome OS..
Public Release
The browser was first publicly released for Microsoft Windows (XP and later only) on 2 September 2008 in 43 languages, officially a beta version. Chrome quickly gained about 1% market share despite Mac OS X and Linux versions still being under development.After the initial surge, usage share dropped until it hit a low of 0.69% in October 2008. It then started rising again until by December 2008, Chrome again passed the 1% threshold.
In late 2008, a message saying that a "test shell" is available to build on Linux was placed in the Chromium project's developer wiki. Some tried this shell, which apparently lacked many features, but appeared to function quite well in rendering web sites (including JavaScript). In early January 2009, CNET reported that Google planned to release versions for Mac OS X and Linux in the first half of the year. By March 2009, it was possible to build a pre-alpha version of the Chromium browser, which looked similar to the Windows release, but was still very far from complete.
The first official Chrome Mac OS X and Linux developer previews were announced on 4 June 2009 with a blog post saying they were missing many features and were intended for early feedback rather than general use. On 9 October 2009, Google CEO Eric Schmidt stated that Chrome for Mac would be released "in a couple of months." On 30 November 2009, it was reported that the Mac OS X beta would be available by the end of 2009, lacking such features as App Mode, a bookmark manager, 64-bit support, Bookmark Sync, and extensions. Official betas for Mac OS X and Linux were released on 8 December 2009.
Source : Wikipedia
Download Link : Google Chrome Website
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