Just before heading off to bed last night I came across an interesting leak of information via LifeHacker,  Gizmodo, and Ars. However, the breadth of coverage wasn’t necessary to catch my attention. I knew this was big news the moment I read the headline… Google is releasing a browser, and its called Chrome. The beta is set to be released later today. Read on.

Update: Google Chrome beta has now been released. I’ll write up my first impressions soon.

There are many things about this announcement that surprised me.

First, I was suprised to learn that Google was working on a browser at all. They have a history of partnership with the Mozilla Foundation and it was always my assumption they were pretty happy with the direction of the Firefox project. Google does have a history of employing certain Mozilla Foundation members and former Netscape employees, including the former project lead for the Firefox project, Ben Goodger. Even though Ben and others have directly worked on crafting web browsers in the past, it was my honest belief that Google chose to employ them to work on things like browser compatibilty and optimization for Google’s web apps, browser plug-ins and extensions, Google Desktop tools (like Google Desktop Search), and web applications and tools for Google’s Android mobile phone platform. I also assumed these browser buffs would help build things like Google Gears and Google Web Toolkit. Who would have thought that Google’s real motivation for employing people with experience building desktop web browsers was to build a desktop web browser of their own? Okay, so maybe it should have been plainly obvious, but for whatever reason I just didn’t see this coming.

However, this is not where the surprises end…

If I had predicted Google was going to build a web browser and I had taken the time to pontificate about what that browser would look like, I don’t think my imaginary browser would have been any closer to what Google has built than, say, Firefox is to what Google has built.

For one, I would have assumed Google would start with the Gecko layout engine. Wrong. They chose Webkit, which was originally the engine for KHTML and later improved upon by Apple. Looking at this decision closer, I can’t say I would have settled on Gecko either. It appears that Webkit is much easier to program for. What I find comical is that Google named the browser Chrome, which is the name Mozilla uses to refer to user interface configurations for their various projects (Firefox, Thunderbird, Camino, Seamonkey, etc.). I am not sure if this name is a tip of Google’s hat to the Mozilla Foundation, an acknowledgement of the multiple Mozilla developers Google employs, or possibly a reference to something Google may have taken from the Firefox project: the XUL user interface language. We may find out which one, if any of these, are the reason for the name Chrome when the beta and source code are released later today

A couple assumptions I would have made about a Google browser appear to be true: the interface is simple, and they have attempted to improve javascript performance and robustness. Given the company’s much lauded approach to very simple user interfaces, and their reliance on using javascript as an application framework, I am not surprised by either of these features. Their V8 javascript rendering engine is claimed to be very fast and robust. I will have to wait for the beta to see just how true this is.

The next big difference between Google Chrome and other browsers is the way it handles resources. Every single tab or window is a seperate operating system process, with isolated memory and rendering resources. Leaked screenshots even show that the browser will include its own internal task manager, should you need to swat a tab out of existence. What is the significance of this? Well, the idea is that should some plugin or website crash your browser, it won’t crash your browser… it will only cause that website’s tab or window to close, leaving the remaining tabs/windows unaffected. This also means that when you close a tab you are killing a process, so every last byte of memory used by that tab is reclaimed, helping thwart nasty memory leaks. I feel that this is Chrome’s “killer feature”. Google wants web applications to replace desktop applications, and for that to happen a browser must be more than just a browser. It must be a platform. It must be an operating system for web applications. This means it must have the robust process isolation and resource management you expect from an operating system. This idea is so simple yet so powerful, I am shocked it has not been done [right] before. I’ll still have to wait for the beta to decide just how well Google Chrome does this.

This is a significant day for web developers, application developers, and the internet at large. I am much more excited than I thought I would be about the concept of a Google Browser. Welcome, Google Chrome!