Google accidentaly leaked details on its upcoming cross-platform open-source browser called Google Chrome, which it claims will deliver a streamlined and improved interface along with performance improvements and security enhancements. The new browser is based on both Apple’s Webkit, the core of the Safari browser, and Firefox. The beta version of Google Chrome, only for for PCs initially, is expected to ship today in more than 100 countries, while Mac and Linux versions are in development.

Google claims that it separates each tab or visited website in its own “sandbox,” a private secure environment that keeps information from other sites: it not only protects privacy, and also offers better stability and performance. The user interface will allow a tab to be created “incognito,” a privacy mode that will not log any of the activity onto the computer, cookies are wiped out and history is not saved when it is closed.

Google will also “sandbox” plugins into their own process and focus on improving JavaScript, which is used to build and deploy a variety of advanced features on. Google plans on using a separate JavaScript virtual machine that generates machine code, directly using the capabilities of the CPU for optimal performance.

Another benefit of sandboxing is that the rights for each process are reduced, not allowing malware to install itself on a computer or affect what is happening in another tab. According to the engineers, the processes can compute but they can’t write files to your hard drive or read files from sensitive areas like your documents or desktop. The user must give explicit permission for high level access.

Google pointed out that current browsers can be affected by fragmented memory, pushing the browser closer to a crash as the user opens new tabs and closes old tabs, even though they might only have a few open at one time. Without the ability to separate the processes, if one thing goes wrong, the whole browser is liable to crash. Chrome’s multi-process approach will allow each tab to run individual independent processes- if one tab fails, the browser recognizes the problem, ends the process in that tab, but the others retain function.

Even within one tab, when the user switches from site to site, Chrome will completely switch the process and reclaim the memory. If a slow-down occurs, a task manager can be opened to see exactly what pages or even what plugins are hogging memory, CPU power, or bandwidth.

Google also hoped that its efforts will begin to address the lingering performance and compatibility issues that face a wide variety of cross-platform browsers by using an automatic testing — an internet “bot” — to check and test millions of the most popular pages each week based on Google PageRank.

Google will be using its Chrome as part of its Android mobile platform and hopes that its use of Google Gears, a plug-in that extends the standard browser experience, will help developers deliver native-app like performance over the Web with cross-platform compatibility.

Download: Google Chrome Beta

Source: Google Chrome Home Page