In what year did Google first release the Chrome web browser? The answer is 2008.
Google publicly released Chrome on September 2, 2008, beginning with a beta version for Windows XP and later systems. The initial release supported 43 languages. A stable public release followed on December 11 of the same year, so both Chrome's debut and its first stable version belong to 2008.
Chrome was developed as a cross-platform browser using open-source components, including Apple's WebKit engine and Mozilla-related technology. Its JavaScript engine, V8, was designed to improve performance for increasingly interactive web applications. The browser's source foundation became the Chromium project, while Google's Chrome product remained proprietary freeware.
Google executives had initially resisted building a separate browser because of the competitive “browser wars.” The project eventually moved forward under development led by Sundar Pichai and engineers recruited partly from the Mozilla community. Chrome's early Windows launch is sometimes confused with its later Mac and Linux releases, which arrived in developer and beta forms during 2009.