Google Chrome

Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was launched in September 2008 for Microsoft Windows and was built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions for Linux, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and Android were later released, becoming the default browser on Android devices. The browser is also the main component of ChromeOS, on which it serves as the platform for web applications. Most of Chrome's source code comes from Google's free and open-source software project known as Chromium, but Chrome is licensed as a proprietary freeware. WebKit was the original rendering engine for chrome, but Google eventually forked it to create the Blink engine; every version of Chrome uses Blink as of 2017, except for the version on IOS. As of March 2026, StatCounter estimates that Chrome has a 75.23% worldwide browser market share on personal computers. It is the most used browser on tablets having an estimated 48% market share. Chrome is also dominant on smartphones with around 67% market share. With a market share of 71.22% across all platforms combined as of December 2025, Chrome is the most used web browser in the world. Chrome has approximately 3.62 billion users as of March 2026. Google chief executive Eric Schmidt was previously involved in the "browser wars" (a part of U.S. corporate history) and was against the expansion of the company into such a new area. However, Google co-founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, spearheaded a software demonstration that pushed Schmidt into making Chrome a core business priority, which resulted in it becoming a commercial success. Because of the proliferation of Chrome, Google has expanded the "Chrome" brand name to other products. This includes ChromeOS, Chromecast, Chromebook, Chromebit, Chromebox, and Chromebase.

History

Google chief executive Eric Schmidt opposed the development of an independent web browser for six years. He stated that "at the time, Google was a small company", and he did not want to go through "bruising browser wars". Company co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page hired several Mozilla Firefox developers and built a demonstration of Chrome. Afterward, Schmidt said, "It was so good that it essentially forced me to change my mind." In September 2004, rumors of Google building a web browser first appeared. Online journals and U.S. newspapers stated at the time that Google was hiring former Microsoft web developers, among others. It also came shortly after the release of Mozilla Firefox 1.0, which was surging in popularity and taking market share from Internet Explorer, which had noted security problems. Chrome is based on the open-source code of the Chromium project. Development of the browser began in 2006, spearheaded by Sundar Pichai. Google has since become the world's most popular search engine. 90% of searches on search engines come from Google users.

Announcement

The release announcement was originally scheduled for September 3, 2008, and a comic by Scott McCloud was to be sent to journalists and bloggers explaining the features within the new browser. Copies intended for Europe were shipped early, and German blogger Philipp Lenssen of Google Blogoscoped made a scanned copy of the 38-page comic available on his website after receiving it on September 1, 2008. Google subsequently made the comic available on Google Books, and mentioned it on their official blog along with an explanation for the early release. The product was named "Chrome" as an initial development project code name, because it is associated with fast cars and speed. Google kept the development project name as the final release name, as a "cheeky" or ironic moniker, as one of the main aims was to minimize the user interface chrome.

Public release

The browser was first publicly released, officially as a beta version, on September 2, 2008, for Windows XP and newer, and with support for 43 languages, and later as a "stable" public release on December 11, 2008. On that same day, a CNET news item drew attention to a passage in the Terms of Service statement for the initial beta release, which seemed to grant Google a license to all content transferred via the Chrome browser. This passage was inherited from the general Google terms of service. Google responded to this criticism immediately by stating that the language used was borrowed from other products, and removed this passage from the Terms of Service. Chrome quickly gained about 1% usage share. After the initial surge, usage share dropped until it hit a low of 0.69% in October 2008. It then started rising again and by December 2008, Chrome again passed the 1% threshold. In early January 2009, CNET reported that Google planned to release versions of Chrome for macOS and Linux in the first half of the year. The first official macOS and Linux developer previews of Chrome were announced on June 4, 2009, with a blog post saying they were missing many features and were intended for early feedback rather than general use. In December 2009, Google released beta versions of Chrome for macOS and Linux. Google Chrome 5.0, announced on May 25, 2010, was the first stable release to support all three platforms. Chrome was one of the twelve browsers offered on BrowserChoice.eu to European Economic Area users of Microsoft Windows in 2010.

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