Google Enters the Browser Wars with Chrome Beta

Google has released the beta version of its new open-source Chrome Web browser.

The download is available now via http://www.google.com/chrome/ in 122 countries and 43 languages. It will run on Windows-based computers running XP or Vista, but Mac and Linux versions are still in the works.

News over Chrome broke Monday after Google inadvertently published a Web comic book with details about the browser.

Now the question is ---> Will Chrome encroach on IE territory? Google officials took pains to not even mention t's name during Tuesday's press event, though Google co-founder Sergey Brin did acknowledge when questioned that if "IE9 was much, much better as a consequence of Chrome, we would consider that a success."

Larry Page, Google's other co-founder, dismissed the idea that Chrome was a reaction to IE8. "We started this two years ago," he said. "I think having a world in which the main sort of code that you're using is open-sourced and people can improve it and there's a healthy eco-system, I think, is very important."

Chrome alone will not be a major moneymaker for Google but if Chrome can improve the user experience, that will encourage more Internet use and ultimately create more revenue for Google.

"If we make our site faster by 20 percent, we can get substantially more usage and that generate directly into revenues," Page said.

Now the question arises that where does this leave Mozilla and its open-source Firefox browser? Mozilla and Google have coordinated on several projects and the two companies recently extended their economic partnership until at least 2011.

Rather than crush Firefox, Chrome could actually help its expansion, suggested Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management at Google.

"Our hope is that by adding our voice, we expand the overall pie," Pichai said. "Our hope is that by adding our voice, more people realize there is a choice" in browsers.

"Firefox market share has been anything but static," Page said. "It has been increasing like crazy."

So why not continue collaborating with Mozilla?

"We did not want to impose our views on anyone else," Pichai said.

In a Tuesday morning blog post, Mozilla chief executive John Lilly wrote that Chrome's release will not significantly affect Mozilla's relationship with Google.

"Mozilla and Google have always been different organizations, with different missions, reasons for existing, and ways of doing things," he wrote.

Mitchell Baker, chairperson of the Mozilla Foundation, wrote in a separate blog post that Chrome will validate "once again the central idea that this tool we call the browser is fundamentally important."

Google's incentive for releasing Chrome is not to become the dominant browser provider, but to "take away the desktop ownership from Microsoft," McLeish said. "It's not a play into the browser market, but a building block for Google's other tools and services."

Mozilla should be worried about Chrome, which could see itself folded into the Google browser in future. "I think that what we will see is that Google will be able to take advantage of the 20 percent market share Firefox has gained."

For a quick look of chrome's features click here.