On September 2, 2008 Google quietly launched a free Web browser called Chrome to take on its arch rival Microsoft which would, analysts claim, challenge the dominance of MS Internet Explorer, as well as the Firefox browser.

The use of Internet software and services is rapidly growing, and browsers are a universal gateway to the Internet. Browsers are also increasingly used as a gateway to Web on cell phones and other mobile devices. Google, analysts say, cannot let Microsoft’s dominant share of the browser market without a direct challenge. In a brief statement, Microsoft welcomed the new entrant but expressed confidence that people would prefer Explorer, which is on every Windows PC sold.

Advantages include an uncluttered, minimalist design and doing away with features such as menus and tool bar icons, in addition to several unique features, including quick response time, inbuilt flash player and easy navigation. One of its best features is that each tab runs separate process than the main browser process. In the situation of crashing of a single tab, the entire browser will not crash and the crashed site will show a sad face icon called a ‘sad tab’. In the Explorer and Firefox, the tabs are below the address bar but in Chrome they are above, allowing more space for to travel. All the websites (billions of them) have been indexed on Chrome. So if you type ‘a’ it will give suggestions like ‘search amazon’ and other sites starting with ‘a’. The homepage of Chrome sports a ‘speed dial’ feature that shows the 9 most visited web pages as screenshots.

In spite of its user friendly design and features, there are some disadvantages as well. For one thing, it cannot open *.tiff files and some image extensions. Some Java Scripts are not supported by it. Also, there is no button facility to download a pluggin. But all said and done, Chrome will prove to be the browser of choice as the user volume increases.