Google attracts a gaggle with new Chrome browser

Google once again is the talk of the Web with this week's release of its very own Web browser, Chrome.

In just one day, it captured 1 percent of the increasingly crowded global Web browser market, according to research company Net Applications.

I shouldn't be surprised.

This is the company, after all, that has been encroaching on Microsoft's territory for months with a series of Web-based applications reminiscent of Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Outlook.

Now, with Chrome, Google has another chance to take a crack at the software giant.

It has been only a few days since Microsoft, the browser market's entrenched leader with 72 percent of users worldwide, released an updated test version of Internet Explorer 8. The company is counting on IE 8 to win back some of the users it has lost lately to rival browsers, such as Firefox and Apple's Safari.

With the release of Chrome, however, nobody seems to care about IE 8 anymore.

Web users in more than 100 countries started downloading Chrome on Tuesday. You can get it free at www.google.com/chrome.

For now, only those with computers running Microsoft Windows can use Chrome. But Google says versions for Apple and Linux operating systems are on the way soon....more