Google Chrome is a freeware web browser developed by Google that uses the WebKit layout engine. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on September 2, 2008, and the public stable release was on December 11, 2008. As of May 2012^[update], Google Chrome has approximately 33% worldwide usage share of web browsers, making it the most widely used web browser, according to Statcounter.

In September 2008, Google released a large portion of Chrome's source code as an open source project called Chromium.

For six years, Google's Chief Executive Eric Schmidt opposed the development of an independent web browser. He stated that "At the time, Google was a small company", and he did not want to go through "bruising browser wars". However, after co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page hired several Mozilla Firefox developers and built a demonstration of Chrome, Schmidt admitted that "It was so good that it essentially forced me to change my mind".

The release announcement was originally scheduled for September 3, 2008, and a comic by Scott McCloud was to be sent to journalists and bloggers explaining the features within the new browser. Copies intended for Europe were shipped early and German blogger Philipp Lenssen of Google Blogoscoped made a scanned copy of the 38-page comic available on his website after receiving it on September 1, 2008. Google subsequently made the comic available on Google Books and mentioned it on their official blog along with an explanation for the early release.