谷歌推出Chrome浏览器
谷歌公司昨天推出一种新的浏览器，名叫“Chrome”。该公司声称此举是为了“给用户带来更多好处，并推动网络创新”，不过基本上没有人怀疑谷歌的目的是要挑战微软公司的IE浏览器在桌上型电脑上的全球统治地位。
IE在浏览器市场的占有率是70%多，Firefox和苹果公司的Safari浏览器各自占有20%和6%的市场份额，得以跻身前三强，而目前的浏览器市场基本上也就是这样一个三马奔腾的局面。目前，大部分用户使用微软浏览器，同时使用谷歌搜索引擎。谷歌显然希望改变这种状态，一统天下。
目前Chrome浏览器只和“视窗”操作系统兼容，并且还只是一个测试版，这意味着该软件可能会存在一些突出的毛病。Chrome的产品经理Sundar Pichai和首席工程师Linus Upson在宣布该产品推出的博客文章里解释说他们是遵照该公司的“早早推出，反复推出”哲学，换言之，发现现存问题的最佳办法是将产品对用户充分开放。Pichai和Upson还透露与Mac和Linux系统兼容的Chrome版本还在开发中，但是他们没有给出它们的推出日期。
那么，Chrome浏览器有什么新颖之处呢？它将地址栏和搜索框合二为一，谷歌声称这有利于简化网络浏览。该浏览器的建造基于因为Firefox而被人们熟知的标签技术，但是谷歌又说它更安全、功能更强大，因为在Chrome的“浏览器结构”里每个标签都是独立的，不会出现一个网页死了导致整个浏览器崩溃的情况。
该软件的工程原理和其平滑外表下面的结构体系被独出心裁地用一组漫画呈现出来。漫画看起来不错，但是还是显得冗长晦涩。不过技术迷们肯定还是会很喜欢它。Chrome的设计者充分利用了Safari和Firefox开发者提供的开源软件；不过假如爆发一轮浏览器大战，那可就有点海水冲了龙王庙了。谷歌上礼拜才跟非赢利性的Mozilla基金会（Firefox的主要开发者）把双方合作协议续签到了2011年。
现在最让分析家们摸不着头脑的是谷歌为什么作出这个举动以及它将如何从Chrome上挣钱。不管怎么说，浏览器只不过是用来浏览网上内容的一个窗口；对于用户来说，它可以说是透明的——或者说是无形的。一些行家猜测，谷歌这么做是一个大步骤中的小步骤；这个大步骤就是降低其对通过它的搜索引擎产生的广告利润的依赖。但是新的利润流到底来自哪里目前还是个未知数。另外它这么做也是以攻为守——专门针对即将问世的一版IE浏览器，该浏览器可以让用户更方便地屏蔽谷歌等发送的广告。
微软现在也不象要善罢甘休的样子。很多Chrome用户用它做的头一件事之一就是访问他们的Hotmail帐号。登陆的时候，页面上会出现如下提示：“我们建议您更新您的浏览器，从而得到使用Hotmail的最大好处。更新大概需要几分钟。如果想要开始，请选择如下浏览器：IE、Firefox或Safari。”
Google launches Chrome web browser
Google yesterday launched a new web browser called Chrome, claiming that it made its move in order to "add value for users and, at the same time, drive innovation on the web", but few doubted that the company was aiming to challenge the dominant position of Microsoft's Internet Explorer on desktops around the world.
Internet Explorer has over 70 percent of the browser market, Mozilla Firefox has around 20 percent and Apple's Safari is the also ran of the big three with 6 percent. The rest of the competition is nowhere. Google clearly hopes that most users web experience, that at the moment mixes Microsoft's Explorer and Google's search engine, will become a more purely Google affair.
Chrome is so far only available for Windows and is a beta version, which means there still may be significant problems with the software. In a blog post announcing the release, product manager Sundar Pichai and chief engineer Linus Upson explained that they were following the company philosophy of "release early and iterate"; in effect saying the best way to detect the remaining problems was to throw it open to ordinary users. Work is in progress on Mac and Linux versions according to Pichai and Upson although they gave no release dates.
So what's new in Chrome? There is an integrated address and search box which the company claims will simplify surfing. The browser is built around the tab technology made familiar by Firefox, but with additional security and robustness according to Google, since in the Chrome "browser architecture", each tab is independent and a crash on one page will not bring the whole browser down.
The software engineering, the machinery behind the smooth surface of Chrome, has been innovatively presented in a cartoon, which, despite the cool pictures, will find too long and heavy-going, but will no doubt appeal to the tech freaks and geeks. The engineers behind Chrome have helped themselves liberally to open source software made available by the developers of Safari and Firefox, which may turn out to be something of a paradox if the browser wars take off, the more so since just last week Google extended a cooperation agreement with non-profit Mozilla to 2011.
The big questions puzzling industry analysts today are, why Google made this move, and how will it make money out of Chrome. A browser is after all simply a window to view content on the web and is pretty well transparent, that is to say invisible, to users. Some pundits speculated it was part of a broader effort by Google to reduce its dependence on advertising revenue generated by its search engine, but where the new revenue streams will come from exactly so far remains obscure. Another motive may be purely defensive, a response to a planned Internet Explorer release that will make it easier for users to block advertisements routed by, for example, Google.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is unlikely to take things lying down. One of the first things many users will do is to try to load up their Hotmail account using Chrome. When we tried Hotmail, it displayed the following message: "We recommend that you upgrade your web browser so you can get the most out of Windows Live Hotmail. Upgrading should only take a few minutes. To get started, choose one of the browsers below: Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, or Apple Safari."
(China.org.cn by John Sexton 汉译：弱猿 September 4, 2008)
