Software, Chrome | featured news

Android lead Andy Rubin will step down from his position, handing over the reins of Google’s mobile operating system to Chrome lead Sundar Pichai. Google chief executive Larry Page broke the news Wednesday in a post on the company’s official blog, saying that Rubin felt the time had come to move on — albeit within the company.

The race is tightening up, but Google Chrome remains the Windows Web browser to beat, in terms of speed, features, and support for new standards.

Mozilla Foundation president Mitchell Baker is sitting on a ticking time bomb. The survival of her company, which pledges to make the web a better place, is at the mercy of one of its main competitors, Google.

Google has released the newest version of its Chrome Web browser, and in the process fixed nine security glitches and folded in the updated Adobe Flash Player that allows users to set the software to update automatically.

Google’s Chrome browser became the most-used browser in the world for one day last weekend, according to web analytics company StatCounter.

In our Top Consumer Products of 2011 list, we selected the Chrome web browser as our number 1 pick. Its market share has grown over 2011 and it's on track to surpass Firefox as the 2nd most popular browser on the desktop (exactly when it passes Firefox depends on whose statistics you read). Over 2011 Google has demonstrated, in both user numbers and technical innovation, that Chrome is the most significant challenge to Microsoft's dominance of the browser market since the days of Netscape Navigator in the late 90s.

The March launches of Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) and Firefox 4 failed to stop Microsoft's and Mozilla's decline in browser share, new Web usage data shows.

As you're aware by now, earlier today Mozilla officially unveiled Firefox 4 to the world. At first glance, it's a great update with massive speed improvements. And that's good, because that's exactly what they need to combat the fast-rising Chrome browser from Google.

Microsoft has launched the finished version of its Internet Explorer 9 web browser amid tough competition from rivals. The company said IE9's graphics handling, security and privacy features put it on an even footing with Firefox, Chrome, Safari and others. The release comes as Microsoft's browser market share is being whittled down by a growing roster of rivals.