What’s Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s favorite Google product at the moment? When I asked him that this week, I expected a “I love all my children equally” answer. Instead, Schmidt surprised me answering without hesitation: Google’s Chrome browser.

“The one that I am the most pleased with is Chrome. This is a personal answer. Because Chrome has a lot of subtlety to it,” Schmidt said. “It’s all of these complex design choices that the Chrome team made that makes Chrome faster and just [intuitive]. And once you start using Chrome it’s very hard to go back to a different browser. And you can’t quite say why. And those are the trade-offs. And they’re all subtle. And that’s the kind of stuff I like. And obviously that extends to Chrome OS as it becomes available.”

Schmidt also said that Chrome harkens back to the simplistic design of Google when it first started:

“I told the team that the design choices of Chrome were as subtly elegant as the design choices that Larry and Sergey made when Google was founded. That’s how clever they were. And I think that’s often missed.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that Google’s founders and CEO didn’t see eye to eye on building out the Chrome browser or OS, at least, not initially.

Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, said that initially when Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founders, brought the idea of building a browser or operating system to him six years ago, he was not interested. Schmidt said recently, “At the time, Google was a small company.” “Having come through the bruising browser wars, I didn’t want to do that again,” he added. But when Schmidt saw what a Googler (previously Firefox developer) built, he was convinced it would be a “game changer.” Page also added that he and Sergey “just wore you down.”

Meanwhile, VentureBeat reports Microsoft’s Vice President of Developer and Platform Evangelism, Walid Abu-Hadba, calling Google’s entry into the OS market as a “defensive” play, to keep Microsoft distracted on search.

As was reported yesterday, Google’s browser Chrome is coming out of beta — a mere 100 days after it was introduced. When I commented to Sundar Pichai, Product VP, that this had to be one of the fastest exits from beta for Google in recent memory he explained that “Google has a very traditional approach to our client software products,” meaning it accelerates the process of getting them to a general release.

There were suggestions on the TechCrunch blog that third parties were potentially exerting pressure on or encouraging Google to hurry up the general release of Chrome. I asked Pichai about this idea and he said that the product was “very far along” when they initially released it in September. He added that the bugs and feature requests have been addressed; so it was time to come out of beta.

What bugs and feature requests?

Pichai said that there had been some issues with audio and video that were now fixed. He added that the browser is now more stable and even faster — indeed speed is one of its chief selling points. Among the feature requests, there are now better privacy controls (in one place), better bookmark management and various security upgrades and improvements. On the nagging question of a Mac version, Pichai said there was a good deal of internal pressure to get one done but it was a “non-trival matter.” He said that one would likely be out by the “end of the first half” of 2009.

One of the great features of Chrome is the new tab page (pictured above). Somewhat like Opera’s “speed dial,” it offers a grid display of most commonly visited sites for easy access. Another feature I would like to see Google add is one like Firefox’s “save and quit” option, which remembers tabs and sites and reopens them upon launching the browser during a subsequent session.

There are a host of coming improvements such as better RSS support and support for extensions, among a range of other things. Pichai also said that the browser has an impressive 10 million users after three months. That’s a very big number but to put it in the context of the larger browser market, here’s the marketshare breakdown:

I asked Google about location in the browser. Google Gears and its Geolocation API are built into Chrome. What that means is that Google’s WiFi and cell tower database triangulation will be able to pinpoint users with a high degree of accuracy (much like Google’s “MyLocation” does on mobile phones). It’s also similar to what Mozilla is doing with the next version of Firefox.

Pichai was not able to discuss these matters in great detail given that they were outside the scope of his responsibility. However he reminded me of the “double opt in” privacy policy tied to the Geolocation API. Google asks if you want to expose your location and third party developers or publishers trying to access that information must also request access from users.

There are lots of implications both for publishers and advertisers coming from this improved location awareness (Windows 7 will also have it). Here’s a previous post on some of the implications of location in the browser.

In the background, Microsoft has allegedly signed a deal with Dell Computer (a long time Google search partner) to pre-load the Live Search toolbar. If all that is true, an improved Chrome could be a carrot to retain the Dell relationship.

Obviously the big story of yesterday and today in the technology world is the impending launch of Google’s open-source browser Chrome. It will likely be available for download here later today. (TechCrunch and Google Blogoscoped have a few screenshots.) There are dozens and dozens of stories on Techmeme.

Most of the coverage, from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and elsewhere, focuses on several themes:

• Google going directly after Microsoft (browser wars redux); it’s even being called a “windows killer” by some

• Google trying to guarantee access to its search box
• Google now competing with ally and partner Firefox

On the last point, Om Malik has an interview with Mozilla CEO John Lilly in which Lilly says, ““I really don’t know how it will impact us.”

Indeed, we’re all speculating until the browser is available for download and people can see whether it represents an upgrade over IE, Opera, Safari or Firefox. For its part Google says:

On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn’t the browser that matters. It’s only a tool to run the important stuff — the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go.

Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today’s complex web applications much better. By keeping each tab in an isolated “sandbox”, we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built a more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, to power the next generation of web applications that aren’t even possible in today’s browsers.

This is just the beginning — Google Chrome is far from done. We’re releasing this beta for Windows to start the broader discussion and hear from you as quickly as possible. We’re hard at work building versions for Mac and Linux too, and will continue to make it even faster and more robust.

One way to look at this is as a kind of operating system for the emerging “cloud computing” world and a strategic asset for Google accordingly. As more computing functions move to the Internet, Chrome does have the potential to contribute to a decline in desktop-OS based computing. However it’s “way premature” to call it a Windows Killer in my view.

Google is making Chrome simultaneously available in 100 countries. Google also has huge reach and a powerful brand, which will make it more likely that there will be a big initial response.

However this is a product that will live or die on own merit: does it work, is it fast and functional? Google says that “this is just the beginning” for Chrome and is doing demos and a Q&A session later today (2 p.m. Eastern US).

I’ll be there and will update this post (or write a new one) after the session.

Postscript: You can watch the webcast here.

Update: Chrome will be available at 12 pm Pacific today.

So much for a quiet Labor Day off. Google Blogoscoped has news of Google Chrome, a new browser that Google plans to release. More coverage can also be found on Techmeme. No — it’s not just a rumor. Google tells me that it is indeed a real browser it plans to release. Expect more news to come when we’re back at things on a normal schedule tomorrow.

Postscript Barry Schwartz: The Google Blog now has a posted on the news. Basically, the Google browser is coming out in Beta for Windows users tomorrow.

Google Takes Partial Ownership Of Maxthon Browser from TechCrunch covers rumors that Google has purchased a minority stake in the Maxthon Browser and that a much larger deal between the two companies is in the works. See related discussion on this via Techmeme.

Google Blatantly Copies Yahoo!? from Yahoo’s Jeremy Zawodny makes a pretty damning case against Google for blatantly ripping off Yahoo’s Internet Explorer 7 promo copy. Yahoo offers a custom version of IE7 via a pitch page you’ll see here. Google appears to have launched its own pitch page yesterday, one that was amazingly similar in look and feel to Yahoo’s.

Jeremy has the side-by-side photos of how the pages looked. Google’s page has since changed. In many places, the copy was either identical or the word Yahoo was simply swapped for Google.

At best, I thought perhaps Google was using some type of template page that Microsoft was encouraging cobranded partners to use. Jeremy says that’s not the case.

Google’s Matt Cutts weighs in with his own post on the topic, damage control by pointing out how Yahoo has copied Google’s ad style, Yahoo ads evolving to match what Google’s showing currently.

True. And Yahoo can easily point out that Google decided that paid ads made sense after imitating GoTo (which Yahoo later bought), plus that Google got real success with ads by moving to a CPC cost format rather than the CPM that they started with.

If I had time and desire, I’d sit here all day pointing out similar things that Google has copied from others, that Yahoo has copied from others, that Microsoft has copied from others, that Ask has copied from others. There’s no end of finger pointing that can be done.

I will say that I find a difference between mimicking user interfaces and simply flat-out copying a landing page. If a particular user interface or standard has evolved into a standard, I can generally back the idea that the industry moves to that, regardless of who pioneered it. But just taking a page and doing a search-and-replace? I cut less slack on that.

There’s no end of discussion sparked by the pages. To get a good roundup, see here on Techmeme for those talking about Jeremy’s story and here for those discussing Matt’s.