ReadWriteWeb

When Google released Chrome just a few weeks ago, we praised it for its innovative user interface and the speed of its JavaScript rendering engine, which blew away the competition. Now, however, WebKit, the open-source project that forms the basis of both Chrome and Apple's Safari browser, has released the latest version of its own JavaScript engine, SquirrelFish Extreme. In our benchmarks, this new engine turned out to be significantly faster than Google's V8 JavaScript engine.

Web analytics firm WebTrends reported today that mainstream Internet users are "embracing" the Google Chrome browser. In the third week since its launch, WebTrends states that Google Chrome is the fourth most popular browser used by visitors to the web site of The Daily Telegraph, Britain's highest selling newspaper. WebTrends puts the figure at "nearly 2 percent" of the total traffic to telegraph.co.uk, which it says is more than Netscape, Mozilla, Opera and other browsers. Presumably the browsers above it are IE, Firefox and Safari.

Here at tech-focused site ReadWriteWeb, the last couple of weeks of Google Analytics data shows that about 7.25% of our readers are visiting using Chrome.

Join us now for our weekly review of Web Technology news and reviews. This week we reported on the launch of Apple's iTunes 8, analyzed AOL's move to bring RSS and lifestreaming to the mainstream, and covered some of the best web apps to come out of DEMOfall08. On the trends side, we looked into what User Experience pros can teach us. Also we delved further into the impact of Google Chrome on the browser market. Listen to our podcast featuring a member of the Chrome team and other guests, and check out the results from our prediction question this week: which browsers will lose the most market share due to Chrome? Last but not least, we bring you the latest from our new Enterprise Channel.

The latest episode of RWW Live, our live podcast show, is set to begin shortly at 3.30pm PST (6.30pm EST). This week's topic is, you guessed it, Chrome. We will be discussing Google's new open source browser and its potential impact in the browser market. We have 3 very special guests on the show to discuss this: Aaron Boodman from Google, a Software Engineer on the Chrome team; Chris Messina from Vidoop (formally of Firefox and Flock); and Alex Russell from The Dojo Toolkit. We encourage you to listen to the show live and ask questions via the chat.

This week we're running a prediction challenge, on the topic of browsers. Google's new browser, Chrome (our coverage), is sure to take market share from the existing players. So we want you to help us predict: which of the following browsers will lose the most share (in percentage terms) between August 2008 and December 2008? Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, or a tie or other? You can cast your prediction by visiting RWW Predictions. It'll be interesting to see what the ReadWriteWeb community thinks will happen!

So Google has released Chrome, its entry in the browser wars (bonus points, Google, for promoting it with a Scott McCloud comic).

I know, I know, it uses the same rendering engine as Safari... but even still, Murphy's Law of Browsers dictates that weird little quirks and idiosyncrasies will somehow find their way in. And in a world where we have to test web pages against Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Konqueror, old versions of Netscape, various mobile browsers and that web-enabled toaster oven in your client's office kitchen, well... oy.

While the early release of the Chrome comic might have changed the way Google went about launching its new browser, it definitely did not hurt Chrome's early success. According to data from Net Applications, Chrome captured more than 1% of the browser market within its first day of release. Since then, it has been growing steadily and is now at around 1.5%, as both technology blogs and mainstream publications have written about it almost nonstop since Monday morning.

Google released Chrome, its new open source app browser today, with "Another One Bites the Dust" playing while we waited on the press call. Can Chrome kill IE? Will it kill Firefox? Or will it go the way of Google Base, Google Sites and other Google Flops? The browser will be available for Windows users in 100 countries and 43 languages today.

Join us for a first look at Chrome together. We'll be walking through it live and sharing our screen just as soon as it goes live. It's Live at google.com/chrome. We'll update this post with a link for the screenshare as soon as Chrome is live and we'll post a recording of the session when we're done. The video of our session is now posted below.Thanks to DimDim for help with this. For now, join us for the press call at this link. We've got some live notes below and a slide show of the slides being used in the presentation (via CenterNetworks). What are you looking for in Chrome? Let us know in comments and chat.

Social bookmarking has become a pretty standard activity these days, with the likes of Mento, Delicious, Mister Wong, Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon offering numerous variations on this theme. Browzmi is taking a different approach from these services by focusing on real-time, collaborative web browsing and bookmarking, with chat being one of its main features. What is especially noteworthy is that Browzmi is not an extension, but basically a browser in a browser.

Browzmi was founded by Travis Parsons in 2006 and is currently being developed by a five person team. Browzmi has not taken any venture funding yet. Registration for Browzmi is open.

Full disclosure: Alex Iskold runs a browser add-on company called AdaptiveBlue. Also Fred Wilson, who is cited in this article, is a partner in Union Square Ventures - an investor in Alex's company.

VC Fred Wilson asked recently on his blog if there is a business in browser add-ons? I have a vested interest, since my company is in the add-on business. Adding a bit of functionality to your browser can be fun and customization makes software more personal, yet there are issues such as privacy, performance, and the inability of mainstream consumers to manage add-ons.