newspapers stated at the time that Google was hiring former Microsoft web developers among others. In September 2004, rumors of Google building a web browser first appeared. After co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page hired several Mozilla Firefox developers and built a demonstration of Chrome, Schmidt said that 'It was so good that it essentially forced me to change my mind.' He stated that 'at the time, Google was a small company', and he did not want to go through 'bruising browser wars'. Google CEO Eric Schmidt opposed the development of an independent web browser for six years.

Because of this success, Google has expanded the 'Chrome' brand name to other products: ChromeOS, Chromecast, Chromebook, Chromebit, Chromebox, and Chromebase. Īs of October 2022, StatCounter estimates that Chrome has a 67% worldwide browser market share (after peaking at 72.38% in November 2018) on personal computers (PC), is most used on tablets (having surpassed Safari), and is also dominant on smartphones and at 65% across all platforms combined. WebKit was the original rendering engine, but Google eventually forked it to create the Blink engine all Chrome variants except iOS now use Blink.

Most of Chrome's source code comes from Google's free and open-source software project Chromium, but Chrome is licensed as proprietary freeware. The browser is also the main component of ChromeOS, where it serves as the platform for web applications. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, iOS, and also for Android, where it is the default browser. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google.

Proprietary freeware, based on open source components

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