Google: Here are all the things we learned while building 100 major versions of Chrome

Google Chrome entered the web browser scene back in 2008, and since then, 100 major versions of the browser have been released. Chrome 100 hit the Stable channel just a week ago with a refreshed logo and a bunch of new developer- and user-facing features. Now, Google has published a blog post talking about the key takeaways from this journey, based on statements from senior executives who have been involved in Chrome's development.

Chrome's Senior Engineering Director Max Christoff has noted that although the company has always prioritized browser performance during development, a key focus moving forward will also be increasing efficiency so that your mobile or laptop doesn't run out of battery super-fast while using Chrome.

Other executives also described how user privacy and security is paramount to the company. This goes hand in hand with Google's recent announcement of building a Privacy Guide to explain online safety settings.

Chrome's UX Director Alex Ainslie talked about building a human-centric design through features like password autofill and tab groups. Meanwhile, Group Product Manager RK Popkin discussed the importance of an inclusive experience through neural machine translations, live captions, DevTools accessibility tree, and collaboration with underrepresented groups.

Senior Staff Developer Advocate & Lead of Chrome Developer Relations Paul Kinlan mentioned how Google has supported the free, open-source Chromium project, which now powers multiple other projects from other vendors such as Edge from Microsoft:

As a web developer before joining Google, I was fascinated with Chrome because it was the first open source browser project (the project itself is called Chromium) and built on web standards, meaning anyone could contribute and improve it. Today, Chromium powers many of the most popular browsers, including Microsoft Edge and Amazon Silk, while also enabling the web to be built into Android apps, TVs and VR headsets. Thanks to our commitment to shorten the release cycle and ship a new version of Chrome more often, we’re now able to make improvements and fix issues quicker, and projects like Interop 2022 will help enable web developers to build experiences that work everywhere.

Finally, Google executives have talked about their learnings from deploying Chrome across organizations and schools, improvements to the Search experience, and making sure that the content you would like to view is more discoverable.

Google has noted that its goal in the past years and the years to come involves working with "the larger ecosystem to drive innovation on the web forward and build a user and developer experience that helps people and developers get things done". You can keep track of upcoming Chrome versions and their respective feature-sets here.

Google: Here are all the things we learned while building 100 major versions of Chrome