[18] As of April 2024[update], StatCounter estimates that Chrome has a 65% worldwide browser market share (after peaking at 72.38% in November 2018) on personal computers (PC),[19] is most used on tablets (having surpassed Safari), and is also dominant on smartphones.

[22] Google chief executive Eric Schmidt was previously involved in the "browser wars", a part of U.S. corporate history, and opposed 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 commercial success.

On that same day, a CNET news item drew attention to a passage in the Terms of Service statement for the initial beta release, which seemed to grant to Google a license to all content transferred via the Chrome browser.

[40] The first official macOS and Linux developer previews of Chrome were announced on June 4, 2009,[41] with a blog post saying they were missing many features and were intended for early feedback rather than general use.

[46] Chrome was assembled from 25 different code libraries from Google and third parties such as Mozilla's Netscape Portable Runtime, Network Security Services, NPAPI (dropped as of version 45),[47] Skia Graphics Engine, SQLite, and a number of other open-source projects.

[48] The V8 JavaScript virtual machine was considered a sufficiently important project to be split off (as was Adobe/Mozilla's Tamarin) and handled by a separate team in Denmark coordinated by Lars Bak.

[96][97] The following year Google reported a "75% drop in customer support help requests for uninstalling unwanted extensions" which led them to expand this restriction to all Windows and Mac users.

[129] Previously, Chrome engineers Addy Osmani and Scott Little announced Lite Mode would automatically lazy-load images and iframes for faster page loads.

[131] Chrome periodically retrieves updates of two blacklists (one for phishing and one for malware), and warns users when they attempt to visit a site flagged as potentially harmful.

[136] On September 9, 2016, it was reported that starting with Chrome 56, users will be warned when they visit insecure HTTP websites to encourage more sites to make the transition to HTTPS.

[146][147][148] Google's official response to the exploits was delivered by Jason Kersey, who congratulated the researchers, noting "We also believe that both submissions are works of art and deserve wider sharing and recognition.

[153] Leaked documents from 2013 to 2016 codenamed Vault 7 detail the capabilities of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, such as the ability to compromise web browsers (including Google Chrome).

[158] The private browsing feature called Incognito mode prevents the browser from locally storing any history information, cookies, site data, or form inputs.

Because Chromium also serves as the pre-release development trunk for Chrome, its revisions are provided as source code and buildable snapshots are produced continuously with each new commit, requiring users to manage their own browser updates.

[238] Many of the latest HTML5 features: almost all of the Web Platform's features: GPU-accelerated canvas, including CSS 3D Transforms, CSS animations, SVG, WebSocket (including binary messages), Dedicated Workers; it has overflow scroll support, strong HTML5 video support, and new capabilities such as IndexedDB, WebWorkers, Application Cache and the File APIs, date- and time-pickers, parts of the Media Capture API.

Released in the Apple App Store on June 26, 2012, it supports the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch, and the current version requires that the device has iOS 15.0 or greater installed.

It was provided to the developer channel, which enabled Windows 8 and 8.1 users to run Chrome with a full-screen, tablet-optimized interface, with access to snapping, sharing, and search functionalities.

ChromeOS is aimed at users who spend most of their computer time on the Web; the only applications on the devices are a browser incorporating a media player and a file manager.

[284] Tom Warren of The Verge went as far as comparing Chrome to Internet Explorer 6, the default browser of Windows XP that was often targeted by competitors due to its similar ubiquity in the early 2000s.

"[286] A class-action lawsuit seeking $5 billion in damages was filed against Google in 2020 on the grounds it misled consumers into thinking it would not track them when using incognito mode, despite using various means to do so.

[287][needs update] In June 2015, the Debian developer community discovered that Chromium 43 and Chrome 43 were programmed to download the Hotword Shared Module, which could enable the OK Google voice recognition extension, although by default it was "off".

[citation needed] A 2019 review by Washington Post technology columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler found that in a typical week of browsing, Chrome allowed thousands more cookies to be stored than Mozilla Firefox.

[306][307] Also tied with Google is its advertising business, which, given the vast market share of Chrome, sought to introduce features that protects this revenue stream, mainly the introduction of a cookie-tracking alternative named Federated Learning of Cohorts (FloC), which evolved into Topics, and Manifest V3 API changes for extensions.

In January 2021, Google stated it was making progress on developing privacy-friendly alternatives which would replace third-party cookies currently being used by advertisers and companies to track browsing habits.

[308][309][310][311] The FLoC proposal also drew criticism from DuckDuckGo, Brave, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation for underestimating the ability of the API to track users online.

[322][323][324][318] In 2021, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) issued a statement that Manifest V3 was "outright harmful to privacy efforts", as it would greatly limit the functionality of ad blocking extensions.

As of September 2022[update], according to StatCounter, Google Chrome had 67% worldwide desktop usage share, making it the most widely used web browser.

Google also created group policy objects to fine-tune the behavior of Chrome in the business environment, for example by setting automatic updates intervals, disabling auto-updates, and configuring a home page.

This move enabled third-party developers to study the underlying source code and to help port the browser to the macOS and Linux operating systems.