Google Chrome is a
web browser developed by
Google that uses the
WebKit layout engine and
application framework. It was first released as a
beta version for
Microsoft Windows on 2 September 2008, and the public stable release was on 11 December 2008. The name is derived from the
graphical user interface frame, or "
chrome", of web browsers. As of August 2010
[update], Chrome was the third most widely used browser, with 7.54% of worldwide
usage share of web browsers, according to
Net Applications.
[3]
In September 2008, Google released a large portion of Chrome's source code, including its
V8 JavaScript engine, as an
open source project entitled
Chromium.
[4][5] This move enabled third-party developers to study the underlying source code and help port the browser to Mac OS X and Linux. A Google spokesperson also expressed hope that other browsers would adopt V8 to improve web application performance.
[6] The Google-authored portion of Chromium is released under the permissive
BSD license,
[7] which allows portions to be incorporated into both open source and closed-source software programs.
[8] Other portions of the source code are subject to a variety of open-source licenses.
[9] Chromium implements the same feature set as Chrome, but lacks built in automatic updates and Google branding, and most notably has a blue-colored logo in place of the multicolored Google logo.
[10]