Google Chrome, Chromium, and competition

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Your experience on the web is fundamentally dependent on the technology that connects you to it: the web browser.

For quite a long time, despite the fact that web sites were becoming more visual and more interactive, browser innovation has not kept up -- with infrequent updates and inconsistencies in the way browsers work making it necessary for developers to customize their sites to work in each browser.

Luckily for everyone, competition eventually kicked in and led to new waves in browser innovation. Key to this growth has been the open source development model, which gives web developers visibility into the browser development process and allows them to improve the browsing experience.

This model has yielded incredible improvements in performance; useful features like the now ubiquitous search box next to the address bar; and the concept of 'extensions' - which allow users to customize browsers with special features. Google has always been a great supporter of open source projects, with our engineers contributing to countless projects alongside the rest of the global tech community.

While contributing to these global projects, however, we began to discuss changes in browser technology which we thought would really benefit users. To do this in practice we had to develop some parts from scratch, an effort that eventually became Google Chrome.

We mixed our new developments--like the multi-threaded JavaScript engine, V8--with pieces developed by other open source projects, like Apple's WebKit and Mozilla's Firefox.

This has allowed us to build a powerful browser quickly. To ensure that any advances we made benefit the web community as a whole--not just us, Google Chrome is completely open source. It's available under the name Chromium and anyone can use the browser's source code in their own projects--even if building a competing browser ("Shrome," anyone?).

But being 'open' isn't just a question about our code. It's also about being open to choice, and not locking people into closed systems. That's why we ask users to choose their search engine when they first start Google Chrome--you don't have to use Google.com if you don't want to.

Competitive open source projects are good for the web and for each other because they push the web forward - while sharing the benefits with everyone. Open source projects spur healthy competition. Competition stimulates innovation. Innovation drives evolution. And evolution is the lifeblood of the internet.

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About Google Inc.

Google's innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets.

Google's targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia.

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