Almost all of us know that Chrome is the most popular browser in the world. Since its launch in 2008, it has been gradually conquering users from all over the world. desktop computers and mobile devices. What we all didn’t know was that the project was born behind the CEO of the company at the time.

Eric Schmidt, who became CEO of the search giant in 2001, was vehemently opposed to entering the browser market. The executive argued that it doesn’t make sense to allocate resources to try to compete in a scenario dominated by big players like Internet Explorer and Mozilla.

Fear of losing to Microsoft

Details about the origin of the scanner were given by Schmidt at a lecture at Stanford University. according to his storyGoogle founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin they wanted to build an operating system and a browser. Although there is no time reference, everything indicates that this episode is pre-2004.

But the response from Google’s new big boss was harsh: “We’re not strong enough to beat Microsoft.” Schmidt argued that although they are a company with many talented people and good income, they are a small player in the giant tech industry, a potential prey for Redmonds.

“Them [Microsoft] They can kill us. They killed me before in previous projects,” he said. His plan seemed to have worked. Instead of focusing on developing a new browser, Google Improve the experience of your products in FirefoxIt was slowly gaining ground in Internet Explorer.

How was Chrome “invented”? @ericschmidt fun BTS. pic.twitter.com/N2fCylQ38f

— Vijay Shekhar Sharma (@vijayshekhar) May 23, 2021

Months passed, exactly six months after that conversation, and Schmidt spoke to the person responsible for improving Firefox performance, and he admitted that he had created a new browser. The developer initially tried to ease tensions by saying that he only worked on the project for part of his time.

Eric Schmidt, Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

However, Schmidt spent months developing the scanner for all of his time at the company. I had a team of 10 more. “Did Larry and Sergey know about this?” ‘ Schmid asked the chief sailor. The answer was positive.

According to an official post, Google officially started working on Chrome in 2006. The key person in the development of the project was Sundar Pichai, the company’s product manager and current CEO. The first version of the browser ran on Windows XP and was released in 2008.

Today, 15 years later, Chrome seems to have no rivals. It has 64.3% of the global browser market share, which means it is by far the most used. Next come Apple’s Safari (19.17) and Microsoft’s Edge (4.07). Statista data places former king Firefox in fourth place, taking 3.63% of the market.

Images: Google | charles haynes | joi ito

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