Today Google is making its’ Chrome shine. Launched in 43 languages and in 122 countries simultaneously as a beta for PC (Mac and Linux version soon to follow) the web world holds its breath as it takes Chrome for a test ride.

Before anything else it is necessary to define what Chrome is exactly. Chrome is a browser… What is a web browser you wonder? It is the interface you use every time you surf the worldwide web. Nothing more nothing less, even though Microsoft, Apple and Mozilla will tell you a browser is much more than that, it really is simply the interface, a complex interface of course, you use to hop skip and jump from one web page to another, surfing the web as you please.

That said the question is what does one expect from such an interface? Simplicity and ease of use, of course; speed and last but not least, security are what we want from our browser of choice. Security is the current stumbling point for every single browser. When you type in the web address of the site you wish to visit the goal is that you end up on that web page. It seems evident but, as recently made public by Dan Kaminsky who sent the internet world into a spin, there are DNS problems proving this is easily not the case. There are many other things a browser can help you do but do existing browsers handle those three seemingly straightforward tasks?

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has always been a headache for web masters; it is not sufficiently compliant with the W3C and often interprets its own way basic css rules. At least twenty times a day I hear my coders complain about IE to the point where I avoid them as much as possible. Even though the release of IE7 has resolved a lot of these issues there is still some way to go. Perhaps IE8, just released, will resolve the remaining ones. Mozilla’s Firefox newest update has too many bugs to mention, for example the java applet failing to initiate on some webpages, the built-in Google search box stuttering every third time you use it, not to mention unexplained crashes. However the version for Mac is very elegant, now if only it were stable. Apple’s Safari sneakily tries to update via iTunes on PCs and has lost the trust of potential users on PC thereby leading me to say that Apple’s attempt to nibble a few market shares was a disaster.

Those are the three main browsers currently available and not a single one alone manages to cover the basics adequately. If only there was something that took the best from all three! This is where Google steps in with Chrome.

If asked what is my favorite site I always answer “Google” without hesitation. Simple, elegant, fun, fast… there is a reason they are the number one search engine in the world. In my opinion they will remain number one a long time, or until someone comes up with something even simpler. However a search engine is just a search engine and simpler would not mean better – look at the huge dud that was Cuil.

Today’s standard in the browser world is Microsofts’ Internet Explorer. I know some will disagree with me but numbers talk and both Apple and Mozilla are far behind. Chrome can be seen as a direct attack on IE which holds close to 70% of the browser market share worldwide, underscoring their intense rivalry.

Could Google steal IE’s place? Recently Google has been coming out with all sorts of off-shoots, not always with great success. There was the mediocre Knoll they launched in July; then again what an idea to do no more than copy Wikipedia. There is Android which Google hopes will garner a few mobile market shares; not a great example of innovation when you compare it to the crazy bet Steve Jobs and Apple made and won with the iPhone. There is also their idea of an app store which, just like Microsoft’s, only underlines how far ahead of the pack Apple is in mobile phones even if the parallel launch of iPhone 3G and mobile me was a nightmare (sometimes less is more).

In their assault on the browser world Google chose what I find a brilliant strategy: “open source”. It makes use of public domain codes from Apple’s WebKit and Mozilla’s Firefox. “Open Source’ means that the user can play with the codes, modify them, organize them … which means this new browser is an individually adaptable organic platform.

Chrome is at this point pretty basic but it does respond to the three concerns I mentioned at the beginning: simplicity and ease of use; speed / code comprehension since it uses a new JavaScript V8 engine which allows the next generation of web applications to work on sites not yet supporting them directly; and security. Chrome includes privacy features, dubbed “porn mode” by online pundits, which allow users to erase all evidence that they visited a web site. Thanks to the “multi-process browser rendering engine”, each page is autonomous, independent, hidden in its’ ‘sandbox’. This is a true innovation and a most welcome one since it means pages opened in tabs are independent of each other so if one page crashes you do not have to close out the program. Security-wise this is also a good thing because if a hacker enters your system he should not be able to exit that ‘sandbox’. In such a way Google’s Chrome locks applications and keeps them from affecting each other or writing on your hard drive. In addition Tabs are the primary focus of the program; they can be dragged around as needed or wanted and no matter how many tabs you open the speed is not affected. Instead of a simple Google search box there is the ‘Omnibox’ which uses site specific (smart) search engine detection. Perhaps my favorite feature is the homepage: Chrome provides a list of your most visited pages, a download box and direct access to the pages you most recently bookmarked – all immediately visible and a true time-saver.

Google says Chrome will regularly update their black list of phishing sites and warn users if they are on a dubious page just as the other browsers already do more or less. Even though it not possible at this time to email links or easily organize bookmarks, Chrome is most definitely a worthy opponent to the Redmond giant and its’ eighth version of IE. Chrome is fast, elegant, useful and seems to know what I want in advance.

The real question is will Chrome pass the user browser test? Will it be adopted? I think so and Google hopes so because Chrome is part of its strategy to disseminate applications. Their on-going main objective is to convert users not only to Chrome but to Googles’ software as a service (SaaS) applications. New and shiny Chrome is impressive… Is that strains of the funeral march I hear for IE?