Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. Over the past few years, these browsers have become common names for web browsers on both Mac and Windows systems, with Apple’s Safari arriving to the Windows platform in June 2007.
Both Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox have been big players in the recent browser wars. While Internet Explorer has been losing ground to Firefox over the past few years, the browser wars have appeared once again; this time it’s a battle between FireFox and the other guys: Apple Safari, Opera, and now, Google Chrome. 
Google Chrome hit the web browsing market on September 2, 2008 for Windows XP and Vista, and was welcomed as an alternative to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 browser. The open-sourced WebKit HTML-engine and a Google-built JavaScript engine, dubbed “V8 JavaScript”, help power the Chrome browser.
The Google Chrome browser has a very simplistic and minimalist user interface that is very simple and clean, although, compared to other browsers, such as Safari and FireFox, Chrome feels as though it’s missing some elements, such as the menu bar just above its tabs and a status indicator bar at the bottom of the window. Upon further usage, you’ll notice that the standard menu bar, which is present in almost every other Windows-based application, is not actually missing, but rather relocated to a push-button off to the right side of the browsing tabs.
Speaking of the browsing tabs, Google has engineered some pretty slick intelligence into its beta-browsing baby. According to Google’s website, and personal testing, Chrome treats each tab as its own browsing instance, allowing the application, as a whole, to live easier. For example, if 4 tabs are open and of those tabs is working long and hard to process data from the server, the rest of the browser works just as quickly without hindering the application. During this same period, if one tab actually returns malicious code that freezes the browser, it only affects that one tab, and doesn’t kill off the whole application. Google has also added in some performance monitoring tools that allow nerdy and geeky users check out the status information of each tab and how it is performing.
Currently, Google Chrome is available for Windows XP and Vista computers, however, Google is working on a Mac version due out before the end of the year; and while the browser is still in its beta stages and missing some expected preferences, it should be a browser that the others should take note of. It’s quick, relatively light, and is very simple to use.
Over all, it has some growing up to do, but this child prodigy is going to shape a new era of browsers for 2009.
