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UPDATE: Google Chrome has been launched. You can download it here.

Google Blogoscoped has published a lengthly cartoon that provides the first public details about Google Chrome. The browser is an open source browser based on WebKit and powered by Google Gears.

The Google Chrome project has already undergone a substantial period of development with engineers working to create a product that is secure, user friendly, fast, stable, safe, and easily testable.

A few special feature which the browser will have:

• The browser will include a JavaScript Virtual Machine called V8
• Google Chrome will use special tabs. Instead of traditional tabs, Chrome puts the tab buttons on the upper side of the window instead of putting it below the address bar like FireFox.
• The browser has an address bar with auto-completion features. The new feature which they introduced on the Google Homepage a few days ago.
• As a default homepage Chrome presents you with a kind of “speed dial” feature, similar to the one of Opera.
• Chrome has a privacy mode; Google says you can create an “incognito” window “and nothing that occurs in that window is ever logged on your computer.”
• Web apps can be launched in their own browser window without address bar and toolbar.
• To fight malware and phishing attempts, Chrome is “constantly” downloading lists of harmful sites.

Google has posted on their official blog that they will be launching the Google Chrome’s beta version tomorrow in over a 100 countries.

You can read the official comics of the browser here.

UPDATE: Google Chrome got its very own Wikipedia article so quickly!
UPDATE: What does John Lilly, Mozilla CEO, have to say about Google Chrome?