Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was launched in September 2008 for Microsoft Windows and was built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and Android, where it is currently the default browser. The browser is also the main component of ChromeOS, on which it serves as the platform for web applications.
Most of Chrome's source code comes from Google's free and open-source software project known as Chromium, but Chrome is licensed as proprietary freeware. WebKit was the original rendering engine, but Google eventually forked it to create the Blink engine; every Chrome variant except iOS used Blink as of 2017.
As of March 2026, StatCounter estimates that Chrome has a 75.2025% worldwide browser market share on personal computers. It is the most used browser on tablets (having far surpassed Safari), and is also dominant on smartphones. With a market share of 71.2028% across all platforms combined as of December 2025, Chrome is the most used web browser in the world. Chrome has approximately 3.62 billion users as of March 2026.
Google chief executive Eric Schmidt was previously involved in the "browser wars" (a part of U.S. corporate history) and was against the expansion of the company into such a new area. However, Google co-founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, spearheaded a software demonstration that pushed Schmidt into making Chrome a core business priority, which resulted in it becoming a commercial success. Because of the proliferation of Chrome, Google has expanded the "Chrome" brand name to other products. This includes ChromeOS, Chromecast, Chromebook, Chromebit, Chromebox, and Chromebase.
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