Smartphones were fairly new and apps weren’t really a big deal in 2008. This was a very interesting time in tech. Google launched the Chrome browser in beta on September 2nd, 2008. This article kicks off our series on the history of web browsers, celebrating Google’s 23rd birthday on September 27, 2021. There were three key contributing factors - the open-source nature of Chromium, revolutionizing web browsing with extensions, and the rise of Android and Chromebooks. In this article, we’ll take a look at how Google skyrocketed Chrome to the top from 2008 to 2012. These aspirations pushed Google to innovate in several key ways, eventually breaking through with the largest browser market share in 2012. In the beginning, Chrome set out to be an entire platform for exploring the web in a new way, not just a browser. In fact, Internet Explorer worked the same in 2008 as it did in 1998. When Google came on the scene, Microsoft hadn’t really thought much about reinventing the browser experience. Google used a few existing tools to create Chrome, but for the most part, their approach to a browser was completely new. Microsoft, along with Mozilla and others, were continuing to build their browsers on legacy code. Mostly they did it starting from scratch. So, how did Google accomplish this unbelievable feat in such a short time? You could even say Chrome killed Internet Explorer. Today, Chrome is by far the most popular browser in the world on both desktop and mobile. In just over 13 years, Google’s Chrome browser has risen from a new project to the behemoth we know today.

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