Google has announced the beta version of a new open source brouser Google Chrome.

The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or "chrome", of web browsers. Chromium is the name of the open source project behind Google Chrome, released under the BSD license.

 

Chrome periodically downloads updates of two blacklists (one for phishing and one for malware) and warns users when they attempt to visit a harmful site

 

Each tab in Chrome is sandboxed into its own process to "prevent malware from installing itself" or "using what happens in one tab to affect what happens in another". Following the principle of least privilege, each process is stripped of its rights and can compute but can not write files or read from sensitive areas (e.g. documents, desktop)—this is similar to "Protected Mode" that is used by Internet Explorer 7 on Windows Vista. The Sandbox Team is said to have "taken this existing process boundary and made it into a jail";for example malicious software running in one tab is unable to sniff credit card numbers, interact with the mouse or tell "Windows to run an executable on start-up" and will be terminated when the tab is closed. This enforces a simple computer security model whereby there are two levels of multilevel security (user andsandbox) and the sandbox can only respond to communication requests initiated by the user.

Plugins such as Adobe Flash Player are typically not standardised and as such cannot be sandboxed like tabs. These often need to run at or above the security level of the browser itself. To reduce exposure to attack, plugins are run in separate processes that communicate with the renderer, itself operating at "very low privileges" in dedicated per-tab processes. Plugins will need to be modified to operate within this software architecture while following the principle of least privilege.

 

Chrome supports the Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface (NPAPI) but does not support the embedding of ActiveXcontrols. Also, Chrome does not have an extension system such as Mozilla-compatible *.xpi cross-platform extension architecture and thus XPI-based extensions such as AdBlock and GreaseMonkey can not be adapted to Chrome.

A private browsing feature called Incognito mode is provided as well. It prevents the browser from storing any history information or cookies from the websites visited. This is similar to the private browsing feature available in the latest beta version of Internet Explorer 8

 

It has a simple and intuitive user interface and an entirely new architecture. According to Google it is designed for speed, security, and stability while browsing the Internet.

 

Google Chrome uses the same open source rendering engine as Apple's Safari browser (WebKit), so your landing pages and sites should appear in Google Chrome as they do in Apple Safari. The way users interact with ads and sites should be similar as well.

Source: Wikipedia