
newspapers stated at the time that Google was hiring former Microsoft web developers among others.

In September 2004, rumors of Google building a web browser first appeared. After co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page hired several Mozilla Firefox developers and built a demonstration of Chrome, Schmidt said that "It was so good that it essentially forced me to change my mind." He stated that "at the time, Google was a small company", and he did not want to go through "bruising browser wars". Google CEO Eric Schmidt opposed the development of an independent web browser for six years.

It was later ported to Linux, macOS, iOS, and Android, where it is the default browser. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox.

Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google.

Proprietary freeware, based on open source components
