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Google Chrome Released

Google Chrome was released yesterday evening (UK time) and so far there are a few mixed opinions about it. The browser seems to be aimed at the techy market, as Google has been particularly keen on emphasising the technical details of the browser over the user benefits. For a starters, the browser is built on the WebKit engine, which itself is a fork of the KHTML engine. Not only will this make the browser one of the more standards compliant in the field (with the likes of Safari, Konqueror and Opera, although the latter uses its own proprietary engine) but it will be fast as well; and this is exactly what all the early testers have said of it.

The browser itself appears to be an amalgamate of IE and Firefox, but it does bring a major new feature to the table: the integration with Google Apps. This is likely to win it some support, although for the most part, I don't think the browser is in any position to steal away any of the market share, as there doesn't seem to be anything truly innovative in the browser that isn't already in the leading browsers.

Reading through the terms and conditions prior to downloading, I did find one thing to worry about, which reminded me of a little trick a certain Canadian ISP pulled:

8.3 Google reserves the right (but shall have no obligation) to pre-screen, review, flag, filter, modify, refuse or remove any or all Content from any Service. For some of the Services, Google may provide tools to filter out explicit sexual content. These tools include the SafeSearch preference settings (see http://www.google.co.uk/help/customize.html#safe). In addition, there are commercially available services and software to limit access to material that you may find objectionable.

Now I can understand the reason for this, but it does leave a lot of legal manoeuvring room should Google wish. Basically it is saying that it reserves the right to change any content on any page you request. Now, while Google holds to the old motto Don't be evil it is entirely within their rights to refuse to show pages relating to other search engines, or anyone who offers an alternative web-based office suite. It does get slightly worse in their license agreement:

By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any content which you submit, post or display on or through, the services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the services and may be revoked for certain services as defined in the additional terms of those services.

Well, this is just plain scary! Basically, if you use this browser to upload, publish or in any way create something online, they own the rights to use it in any way they wish. So much for using the browser for better Google Apps integration then. While I'm sure that this was not what they intended, it's what you are potentially agreeing to let them do, which is not, I think, the smartest move someone could make.

So, with all the legal confusion for a new-face old-body browser, that is not yet even available for the OS I use every day, I think I'll only use this browser for testing, and even then under the most careful of conditions...