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Google introduces shiny new browser prototype, Chrome

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2nd Sep 2008
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In the tit-for-tat battleground of global software, the search engine-based Google empire has launched a new browser to compete with Microsoft Internet Explorer and the open source Firefox browser. John Stokdyk reports.

Until the news emerged in a company blog on Monday, there was remarkably little buzz surrounding Google Chrome, which becomes available as a beta test download today.

The timing is particularly sharp, since Microsoft is girding its loins to launch the new version of its browser, Internet Explorer 8. Just in case you think this is a two horse race, the Mozilla Foundation, which is responsible for the Firefox browswer claims to have achieved more than 8m downloads when its version 3 was released in June.

Reading the explanation from Google product management vice president Sundar Pichai and engineering director Linus Upson, the move into browser software seems perfectly logical. As an entirely web-based business with a growing portfolio of online applications, Google has a lot of relevant experience.

"Because we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there," the Goggle executives wrote. "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."

Much of the detail surrounding Chrome's modular design is set out in an entertaining electronic comic, which explains that the system will be based around separate process tabs that work independently. If one process hangs, only that tab will be affected.

Chrome will come with an "incognito" privacy mode that, like Microsoft's new InPrivate feature, will not log what happens within a browser window. It also links into Google's list of malware sites to block access to potentially harmful downloads.

Chrome has been built with elements and concepts borrowed from Firefox and Apple's Webkit rendering engine. In that spirit, the company said it will make all the Chrome code open source to stimulate collaboration within the browser developer community.

With preview images now available online, the embryonic version of Google Chrome looks and sounds quite interesting - for a browser. But for many years, Google has been one of the main backers of the Mozilla Foundation that develops Firefox.

ZD Net's Larry Dignan noted Mozilla "chief lizard wrangler" Mitchell Baker's comment that the majority of the foundation's revenue comes from Google. The little search box at the top right of Firefox is what keeps the foundation going, and will continue to do so in a deal that extended Google's financial support until 2011.

In Dignan's analysis, Chrome is a spoiler for IE8 - which was made available as a beta test download last week. Apart from upsetting Microsoft in the short term, Google's hope will be that together Chrome and Firefox can continue to erode Internet Explorer's market share "If Google’s browser grabs 10% market share in a year it's likely to take it from IE," wrote Dignan. "And if Google’s Chrome isn’t a hit it could be a vehicle to acquire Mozilla."

  • Also this week, Microsoft paid $486m to acquire shopping search and comparison site Ciao.com to beef up its competitive offerings against. Google.
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    John Stokdyk, AccountingWEB head of insight
    By John Stokdyk
    10th Sep 2008 12:09

    Download defaults also vulnerable
    While researching another story, I spotted a blog post from Trend Micro warning of another vulnerability in Chrome.

    Because Chrome uses the same WebKit rendering engine that Safari uses, it is also liable to what is described to "carpet-bombing" attacks, where the browser could download and execute malicious files from booby-traped websites without prompting.

    To make it more effecient when working with web-based applications, the default in Crome is set to download files straight to the Desktop without warning, potentially putting malware on the user's computer. (At least the malicious files will only run if a user actually clicks on it in the download toolbar.) (this normally shows the most recent downloads) conspicuously placed at the bottom of the browser window.

    The simplest way to counteract the threat is to go to Options-Minor Tweaks and click the check box beside ‘Ask where to save each file before downloading’.

    The EvilFingers.com site has also found an exploit that allows hackers to crash the entire browser - not just an individual tap, as Google has claimed.

    As Charles so wisely pointed out, Chrome is still a beta-test product - and any program designed to run within the world's incredibly complex computing infrastructure is going to have vulnerabilities. The main risk factor is the degree to which hackers are tempted to attack a program. Chrome will have to grab a pretty big piece of the market before it attracts the unwanted attention that IE gets.

    John Stokdyk
    Technology editor
    AccountingWEB.co.uk

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    By cverrier
    10th Sep 2008 09:42

    plus a security issue or two.....
    Apparently, it's been discovered that Chrome is a little over-enthusiastic with its caching. (It caches secured pages, along with everything else)

    If you use it to access, say, a banking site, then much of the information you view is retained in a form that the next user of the PC can easily view.

    http://www.trustedreviews.com/software/news/2008/09/05/Chrome-Crisis--Indexes-Bank-Accounts-/p1

    Don't forget - Chrome is a Beta product - approach with caution!

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    John Stokdyk, AccountingWEB head of insight
    By John Stokdyk
    05th Sep 2008 15:25

    Licence grumbles
    In a posting on our sister site UK Business Forums, Gary Kind, of www.domorewithsage.com advised Chrome users to look carefully at the small print of the browser licence before jumping in with both feet.

    "The licensing terms seem very restrictive and quite worrying," he writes, quoting the following extract: “By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any content which you submit, post or display on or through, the services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the services and may be revoked for certain services as defined in the additional terms of those services.”

    My initial response was that this was probably an oversight, where the company's lawyers just copied across boilerplate from the main Google service. This also happened with MySpace until Billy Bragg challenged them.

    According to BBC News, this turns out to have been the case. Google senior product counsel Rebecca Ward said Google said had reused its Universal Terms of Service "to keep things simple for our users" and dropped that bit from the Chrome licence.

    John Stokdyk
    Technology editor
    AccountingWEB.co.uk

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