OStatic

Who's the first company you think of when the words open source come up in conversation? Red Hat? Canonical? MySQL? Well, if Google co-founder Larry Page is to be taken seriously, apparently it ought to be Google.

Even though it's only available in a Windows version so far, Google's open source Chrome browser is reaching a lot of people, according to data from Nielsen Online. Nielsen reports that between Sep. 1st and Sep. 7th, more than 1.9 million unique visitors in the U.S. visited the Thank You page for the Chrome browser. The data lines up with similar findings from NetApplications, which has found that Chrome has about one percent of browser share--ahead of Opera. Which browser does Chrome not appear to be taking share from, though? That would be Safari.

As The Register reports, T-Mobile is sending out invitations to the launch of the first handset based on Google's Android platform. The handset is from HTC, and the Wall Street Journal reports that HTC says it expects to ship 600,000 to 700,000 units of the phone, called the Dream. However, I'm in agreement with Dana Blankenhorn that this first phone won't set the world on fire.

As is typical for Google, its new Chrome browser features a tabula rasa interface, without the Windows menu system and toolbars that many browser users are used to. At the same time, it shares much code with Mozilla's Firefox browser, and is customizable in many of the same ways as Firefox. Around the web, I'm already seeing some astute tutorials and resources show up for those interested in souping Chrome up and getting the most out of it. Here are some strong resources.

Our sister blog JKOnTheRun has an interesting post up about why Google's Chrome browser should be the browser of choice on netbooks--low-cost subnotebooks such as the Asus Eee PCs. For now, Chrome is Windows-only, but Google is working on a Linux version. Among JKOnTheRun's reasons why Chrome suits netbooks so well are: better memory management, upcoming plug-ins, and a smart home page. Among these, better memory management does look like it could be very valuable on netbooks, which typically don't have tons of RAM. Chrome may have a bright future on other types of mobile devices, too. Check out the post.

While it wasn't widely written up in the coverage of yesterday's release of the Chrome browser from Google, the company also open sourced a big portion of Android?s graphic engine code. The code comes from the Skia Graphics Engine that was developed by Skia Inc., a company Google acquired in 2005. According to our sister blog GigaOm: This vector graphics rendering software makes high-end visual effects possible on feature phones. It is tiny in size and is capable of delivering very high quality. Skia?s engine is the graphics core of both Google Android and Google Chrome. Check out their story.

Google's Chrome open source browser is now available for download in beta, for Windows users. We've put it through some paces today, and have overall been favorably impressed with how clean and complete for a beta browser it is. If you haven't yet read through Google's explanation of its goals for Chrome, see that here. The browser reflects a focus on web applications--letting you create shortcuts for your favorite ones that will open the apps even if Chrome is closed, and more--and runs well. Still, it will be some time before I consider it as my default browser. Here's more, after the jump.