Mac and Linux users are being forced to wait for the new Google Chrome web browser that was launched today.

The 7-Mbyte download is available now via http://www.google.com/chrome/ . News about Chrome was revealed yesterday after Google inadvertently published a Web comic book with details about the browser.

Google say that new open source browser which is only available for Windows OS users is intended to create a better web experience. Available in beta in more than 40 languages, Google Chrome is a new approach to the browser that's based on the simplicity and power that users have come to expect from Google products. Said a Google spokesperson.

In the early days of the Internet, web pages were frequently little more than text. But today the web has evolved into a powerful platform that enables users to collaborate with friends and colleagues through email and other web applications, edit documents, watch videos, listen to music, manage finances and much more. Google Chrome was built for today's web and for the applications of tomorrow. 

"We think of the browser as the window to the web ? it's a tool for users to interact with the web sites and applications they care about, and it's important that we don't get in the way of that experience," said Sundar Pichai, Vice President of Product Management, Google  "Just like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome has a simple user interface with a sophisticated core to enable the modern web."

Making the web experience better for users

Google Chrome was designed to make it easy for users to search and navigate the web for the content they're looking for. 

    - A combined search and address bar quickly takes users where they want to go, often in just a few keystrokes.

    - When users open a new tab in Google Chrome, they'll see a page that includes snapshots of their most-visited sites, recent searches and bookmarks, making it even easier to navigate the web. 

Google Chrome was engineered to deliver a seamless web experience for users. At its core is a multi-process platform that helps provide users with enhanced stability and security.

    - Each browser tab operates as a separate process; by isolating tabs, should one tab crash or misbehave, others remain stable and responsive, and users can continue working without having to restart Google Chrome.

    - Google also built a new JavaScript engine, V8, that not only speeds up today's web applications, but enables a whole new class of web applications that couldn't exist on today's browsers.

Contributing to the innovation of browsers through openness

"While we see this as a fundamental shift in the way people think about browsers, we realise that we couldn't have created Google Chrome on our own," said Linus Upson, Director of Engineering, Google Inc. "Google Chrome was built upon other open source projects that are making significant contributions to browser technology and have helped to spur competition and innovation."

To further advance the openness of the web, Google Chrome is being released as an open source project. The intent is that Google will help make future browsers better by contributing the underlying technology in Google Chrome to the market, while continuing to develop additional features.   

How to get Google Chrome

Google Chrome is being released in beta for Windows and can be downloaded at www.google.com/chrome.