what is Google Chrome

Google Chrome is a web browser released by Google which uses the WebKit layout engine and application framework. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on 2 September 2008, and the public stable release was on 11 December 2008. The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or "chrome", of web browsers. As of December 2009 Chrome was the third most widely used browser, with 4.4% of worldwide usage share of web browsers.

In September 2008, Google released the entire source code of Chrome, including its V8 JavaScript engine, as an open source project entitled Chromium. This move enabled third-party developers to study the underlying source code and help port the browser to Mac OS X and Linux. A Google spokesperson also expressed hope that other browsers would adopt V8 to help web applications.The Google-authored portion of Chromium is released under the permissive BSD license, which allows portions to be incorporated into both open source and proprietary software programs. Other portions of the source code are subject to a variety of open-source licenses. Chromium implements the same feature set as Chrome, but without Google branding and automatic updates, and it has a slightly different logo