Google apparently accidentally announced their new browser yesterday, then decided to post a 25 page comic on their new app on their site about the new WebKit powered browser called Chrome.

Why do we need another browser?

In my opinion we don't. There's Safari for the Mac user, Firefox for the Windows and Linux user, and Internet Explorer for the novice users who don't care as long as it loads pages. Why Google need their own browser to add to the ever growing pool of web surfing apps is beyond me. It's going to be based on WebKit too, so basically all Google are doing are adding another GUI to an already widely used engine, so it is really the same thing as Apple have done with Safari for Windows. I guess a good thing about the new browser for a developer is if your site works in Safari or any other WebKit based app, it will work in Google Chrome.

It looks a little odd...

The first screenshots of the app have started emerging from all corners of the web - TechCrunch have posted some screenshots and splash screens of early videos regarding the new browser that were posted to Google's site, then removed. I've got to say - I do not like the GUI. I don't like the Safari GUI on Windows because it doesn't fit in with the OS, and the baby blue corporate colour used on Chrome will look stupid against the Aero Glass interface of Vista.

Why is their browser better than pre existing ones?

From the features published on the cartoon and the breakdown TechCrunch published about the browser it looks like a pretty innovative but standard browser. It uses WebKit as i've already mentioned, and Google have developed an entirely new JavaScript engine from the ground up called V8, which is apparently much faster than other JavaScript processing kits. Another big feature being noted is that the browser will run tabs in separate processes, so if one tab crashes, the entire browser won't go with it. Read the TC post regarding features and release information.

Switch from Firefox?

Overall, it seems that the browser will be quite innovative and feature rich, but not really enough so to conquer other browsers out there now. I know I'll certainly try it out as soon as it's available, but i'm not sure if I will be using it every day like Firefox, or just use it for testing out sites - just as I use Internet Explorer and Safari now.