Google has launched a beta version of a new web browser named Chrome. Major publications, technology webzines and blogs have been abuzz over Chrome and what it will mean for competition and the future of the web. Other comments ranged from cheers to privacy concerns to grumbling web developers saying, "great, another browser to test my websites with."

Chrome's original license gave 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...You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above license." However the license has now been reworded so users retain copyrights.

With Chrome, Google seems to pave the way for more advanced web applications of the future.I spent a small amount of time playing with the new browser, and so far I like what I see. Your default home page shows a preview of the sites you frequent most,  and the address bar, or "Omnibar" as Google calls it, live searches for you.

But for the most part it's just another browser – that is, until you look under the hood. A comic book released about its technology was a very interesting read. It does a fine job explaining in layman's terms how Chrome is different and how it establishes new ground in web technology. For example, each tab is started as it's own process, or thread, so if something goes haywire, just that tab goes down, and you get a "sad tab" instead of your whole browser session crashing. Memory is reused more efficiently as you close tabs so that a whole day of browsing doesn't adversely affect performance. Each tab process is also sandboxed, given limited memory and read/write permissions or its own safe little sandbox to play in. That way malicious sites with unruly scripts have less ability to wreak havoc on your system. With Chrome, Google seems to pave the way for more advanced web applications of the future.

Also, Google's Chrome code is open source, so other browser development teams can take from and expound upon Google's innovations. I think it's a great step forward in web browsers and definitely something that will have an effect on the future of the web.
[Google, Guardian, BBC, Google2]