Google Chrome

Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser owned and developed by Google. The web browser’s source code mostly comes from Google’s open-source project Chromium. But the Chrome itself is licensed as proprietary freeware. It was using the Webkit engine to render web pages. Eventually, Google changed the rendering engine with Blink, which is a part of the open-source Chromium project.

Google Chrome’s first version arrived on September 2, 2008, as a beta version for the Windows XP operating system. The following 1.0 version landed on December 11, 2008. macOS and Linux beta versions were released in 2009. With the 5.0 version in 2010, the browser became multi-platform with stable releases on macOS and Linux. Currently, the web browser is almost simultaneously released on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS operating systems.

The web browser supports extensions as well as applications that can be downloaded via Chrome Web Store. Those applications can either be as simple as opening a page or complicated enough to provide some benefits even in offline mode. Google Chrome supports automatic web page translation which is far from perfect but still can help to navigate foreign websites. It also has an Incognito mode which stops collecting history information, cookies, site data, and form inputs. However, the files that were downloaded and the bookmarks created in Incognito mode will still be accessible locally and globally, with cloud synchronization if the user has activated.

The most noticeable advantage of Google Chrome is the seamless synchronization between all devices. The bookmarks, payment methods, browsing history, themes, and all other things are integrated into users’ Google account as a cloud service. That enables switching between platforms quite easily.

As of October 2021, Google Chrome has a massive share of 64.67% of all web browsers between all platforms. The only platform which is not dominated by Google Chrome is the tablet. And that is because Apple’s iPad dominates the tablet market, which comes with Safari pre-installed.