First of all Happy Birthday Chrome.! Wishing you a successful journey ahead and keep growing 🙂 It was on same day when Google first released its much awaited web browser. Google released first Chrome beta version for Microsoft Windows on 2 September 2008.

The name Google Chrome is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or “chrome”, of web browsers.

Before Chrome came in to existence the main players where Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox. It was the time when Google has just started expanding its market in other fields than search engine. But the release of yet another best product Chrome by Google surprised everyone with its cool GUI.

Join with us to go through the great journey Google’s Chrome web browser,

History

For six years, Google’s Chief Executive Eric Schmidt was against the idea of building an independent web browser. He stated that “At the time, Google was a small company,” and he didn’t want to go through “bruising browser wars”. However, after co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page hired several Firefox developers and built a demonstration of Chrome, Mr. Schmidt admitted that “It was so good that it essentially forced me to change my mind.”

When they announced!

The browser was first publicly released for Microsoft Windows (XP and later only) on 2 September 2008 in 43 languages, officially a beta version. Chrome quickly gained about 1% market share despite being only available for Microsoft Windows.

Google official Blog article about on 1 sept 2008 said,

At Google, we have a saying: “launch early and iterate.” While this approach is usually limited to our engineers, it apparently applies to our mailroom as well! All of us at Google spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends — all using a browser…. We will be launching the beta version of Google Chrome tomorrow in more than 100 countries..

Tech tip: Have you heard of Google Chrome’s comic book?? Check out here!

Version History

Well the Google has released many build versions, canary builds, development releases, beta versions and many more! We are not going through all those. Here are the top beta and final versions which showed some important changes.

Google Chrome ver.0.2.149

Release Date: 02 September 2008

Well this was the first beta released which went on hit the browsers war. Google released Chrome version 0.2.149 went online and many users downloaded as well. Chrome claimed 1% of browsers market on its first release.

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.

Google Chrome ver.0.3.154

Release Date: 29 October 2008

Chrome’s first beta release initially claimed 1% market share for sure, but right next month Google noticed the dip in share by 0.4%. Reason was crystal clear and Google made changes and released next version on 29 October 2008.

Google improved plugin performance and reliability. Spell checking for input fields. Improved web proxy performance and reliability. Tab and window management updates on version 0.3.154.

Google Chrome ver.1.0.154

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Release Date: 11 December 2008

It was first stable release by Chrome. Chrome’s market went up to 1.38% and Google seem to be happy 😉

Google Chrome ver.2.0.172

Release Date: 24 July 2009

Google Chrome version 2.0.172 saw a totally change over when compared to its previous releases. This time Chrome showed 35% faster JavaScript on the SunSpider benchmark, Mouse wheel support, Full-screen mode, Full-page zoom. First time user found form auto fill feature. Users were able to sort bookmarks by title. Tab docking to browser and desktop edges. Basic Greasemonkey support.

Tech tip: By the end of August 2009 Chrome took over the 3rd best web browser title from Opera.

Google Chrome ver.3.0.195

Release Date: 12 October 2009

After becoming the third most used browser Google started comparing Chrome with Firefox and IE. There was still many things left out to compete them. Chrome 3.0.195 got new “new tab” page for improved customization. 25% faster JavaScript. HTML5 video and audio tag support. For a first time Google gave opportunity for its users to add themes for Chrome.

Tech tip: By the end of November 2009, Chrome got the still stronger market share of 4.66%.

Google Chrome ver.4.0.249

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Release Date: 25 January 2010

This time Google started comparing with Firefox and made big changes in Chrome. Chrome 4.0.249 improved HTML5 support and performance improvements. For a first time Chrome showed 100% ACID3 pass result. As Firefox, Chrome also started supporting addons / extensions. All attracted still more users and market share went up to 7% by March end.

Google Chrome ver.5.0.375

Release Date: 25 May 2010

Just 4 months and Google is back with new version again. Google released Chrome 5 to Linux and Mac as well. Chrome 5 included many things like Geolocation APIs, Application Cache, web sockets, and file drag-and-drop. Google included Adobe flash player and revamped bookmark manager as well in Chrome 5.

Tech tip: Chrome market share crossed 9% and became more stronger 😉

Google Chrome ver.6.0.472

Release Date: 25 May 2010

Well we all know just 2 weeks back only we all saw the Chrome 6. Chrome 6 can be called as one of the best release by Google. There are lot of Changes and we also noted 15 ultimate changes in Chrome 6.

Google Chrome ver.7.0.509

Release Date: 25 August 2010

Chrome 7 still under development stage. Google team is working on GPU acceleration on Chrome browser to compete with Inter Explorer 9 and Firefox 4. This is the very good move by Chromium team to add the only missing feature in Chrome when compared with others. We saw there were 7 notable changes in chrome / chromium 7. We still don’t know when the final and stable release will be out in market.

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Google released many products in past few years and Chrome is also one among them. But rather than any other product after its best search engine, Google Chrome showed good growth. Google Chrome has changed web browsers market share and the growth is tremendous.

Google has drawn a new strategy in new Chrome version releases. From now, every 6 weeks we will see new version of Chrome which clearly tells we will get Chrome 7 and 8 by this end. But only question is till when Google will use this plan?

Like Chrome? Love Chrome? Share your special comments with everyone 🙂 Happy birthday Chrome 🙂 Have a successful year ahead 😉