Google Chrome - Coming Soon to a Computer Near You

I first read about this project over at Google Blogoscoped. Apparently they sent a comic book in the mail talking about Google Chrome, Google’s Web Browser project. Google’s official blog now has a post on the project. Looks like they sent out a copy of the comic book early. TechCrunch has a story on the new browser as well. It looks like the beta will be out tomorrow with a Windows only version available right a way with Apple and Linux versions to come later.

It is interesting that Google has decided to create its own web browser. It has basically funded Mozilla Firefox, but apparently that is not enough for Google. The Google Chrome web browser is open source project so other projects can look at what Google has done and use that in their projects. It is nice to have more open source web browser innovation. That will certainly keep Microsoft on their toes. If they were worried about Firefox taking away their web browser share, what will a web browser created by Google do to Microsoft’s web browser share. This should also help Google make their web applications more accessible, since Google Gears could at some time in the future be an integrated part of the web browser.

Things I am not to happy about Google introducing a web browser.

• It means I have yet another web browser that I need to test websites in. Granted things should look similar to Firefox, but you never know.
• The paranoid part of me is not so sure I like the idea of using a Google web browser. Google can already track me and my preferences through search, advertising on their network, RSS subscriptions that I read, sites I maintain through Webmaster Tools and most people don’t even realize that if they have a Google account their web history might be being recorded already by Google. Not to mention the Google Toolbar. Do we really want Google to know every website we visit and keep a record of it? I don’t know if the Google Chrome web browser will do that, but it would not surprise me.
• The TechCrunch article talks about malware and phishing sites. “Google will also continually download a list of phishing sites and list of malware sites to your computer, which will be used to warn you when you visit them. Site owners will be notified when their sites are put on either of the lists so false positives can be remedied.” How will site owners be notified? How do you report a false positive if your websites makes it on the list? Will you competitors go and submit your websites to the malware/phishing list and force you to fill out a reconsideration request?

I guess we won’t know all the details until the browser is released. With the release of Google Chrome web browser can the Google Web OS be very far behind?

I know what I will be trying out tomorrow on my Windows computer.