google chrome browser - installation

Google released its first ever Internet browser in a long-awaited move that increased pressure on Microsoft and laid a new foundation for a mass transition to web-based computing.

A test version of the new software, named Google Chrome, was made available for download in more than 100 countries Tuesday. The open-source browser had been in secret development for over two years at the search engine giant.

According to Google, Chrome is less demanding than current browsers on the memory and chips which run computers. The main new features include a new Javascript engine called V8 that executes functions through the browser much faster and more securely than anything currently on the market.

Chrome also isolates each separate tab that is opened in the browser, making sure that the browser never crashes.

Chrome's deployment marked a new threat to Internet Explorer, the Microsoft browser which has seen its market share drop almost 20 percent to just 73 percent in the four years since its open source rival Firefox came out.

But Google, the world's leading Internet company, has far loftier ambitions for Chrome than merely taking another chunk out of Internet Explorer. Google's goal is for Chrome to accelerate the move to browser-based applications on devices from PCs to cellphones.