It was when not if… Google Chrome

Today Google is expected to release their brand spanking new web browser, Google Chrome (in Beta). It was only a matter of time before Google moved into the world of web browsers. Yesterday Google left a post on their blog,

“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.”

The comic book introducing Google Chrome is a massive 38 pages long. You may find yourself losing interest sometime halfway… it’s not exactly Dilbert. It doesn’t try to be funny, it’s more of a “Google Chrome for Dummies”.

The comic strip concentrates on a few key areas: preventing crashing, keeping it simple, improving speed, stopping malware and protecting against phishing. The browser is based on WebKit, also used in Safari and Google’s Android mobile platform. Chrome prides itself on the fact it’s “made from scratch”. A program made from scratch (by Google) is always nice for the user. It would be great if Google could create a desktop operating system from scratch, surely, like this browser its only a matter of time.

In Google’s post they point out,

“We owe a great debt to many open source projects, and we’re committed to continuing on their path. We’ve used components from Apple’s WebKit and Mozilla’s Firefox, among others — and in that spirit, we are making all of our code open source as well. We hope to collaborate with the entire community to help drive the web forward.”

Google will most likely try and support Mozilla Firefox (which it funded heavily and will continue to be funded by Google until 2011) while increasing exposure of it’s browser, because right about now the people at Firefox probably aren’t to happy, especially considering a couple of them left Mozilla to work on Google Chrome. Although Mozilla SEO, John Lilly spoke up stating that Chrome was inevitable and that they welcomed the challenge.

The screenshot shown to the right is supposedly of Google Chrome, it’s design is not unlike a skinned Opera, especially its nine button “speed dial” like interface found in Opera (yes… DoesWhat has been superimposed in).

If Google’s new browser does everything they say it will then there is nothing stopping them from powering into the browser market and taking a chunk of the market away from the likes of Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera and Apple’s Safari. It won’t take much to impress further than Internet Explorer 8 Beta.

It must only be a matter of hours before Google provide a download link (Windows users only at the moment, Mac OS X and Linux versions coming later).