InternetHere Comes Google's Browser

The release is expected to be strong on handling video and other complex Web programs.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) is set to introduce on Tuesday a new Web browser designed to more quickly handle video-rich or other complex Web programs, posing a challenge to browsers designed originally to handle text and graphics. Google officials confirmed news of long-rumored plans to offer its own Web browsing software, entitled Google Chrome, in a company blog post after it mistakenly mailed details of the plan to a Google-watching blog, called Blogoscoped.com. The company statement calls the move "a fresh take on the browser" and said it will be introducing a public trial of the Web browser for Microsoft Corp Windows users on Tuesday. The Internet search leader is also working on versions for Apple Macintosh users and for Linux devices, it said. The launch of Chrome coincides with the recent introduction by arch-rival Microsoft of its Internet Explorer 8 last month. Internet Explorer holds roughly three-quarters of the browser market, followed by Mozilla's Firefox and Apple Inc's Safari browsers. Google said its engineers have borrowed from a variety of other open-source projects, including Apple's WebKit and the Mozilla Firefox open-source browser. As a result, Google plans to make all of Chrome software code open to other developers to enhance and expand, the company said. "We realized that the Web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser," Google Vice... [ Read more on www.internetnews.com ]

InternetGoogle unveils browser, acknowledges debt to Apple (Reuters)

Reuters - Google Inc's new browser software is designed to work "invisibly" and will run any application that runs on Apple Inc's Safari Web browser, company officials said on Tuesday.

InternetISO Dissenters Fire Back at Microsoft Decision

A handful of nations blast the standards body, claiming that they're no longer confident that it's a vendor-neutral organization.