Native Client in Chrome: Google flexes Web muscle

Google has built its Native Client technology into its newest version of Chrome, endowing the browser with new processing power for running Web applications.

Native Client, or NaCl for short, is an ambitious Google project that, if successful, will help close one gap that separates Web applications from those that run natively on a computer's operating system. That would improve the competitive position of Web applications such as Google Docs compared to Microsoft Office--and thereby boost Google's Chrome OS project in comparison with Windows.

Most Web browsers run programs written in JavaScript or perhaps Flash, both of them running on a programming foundation that makes those programs slower than native software. But Native Client lets programmers write software that directly taps into x86 chip models such as AMD's Athlon or Intel's Core. Secial programming tools and a screening mechanism in the Native Client software itself are designed to provide security for what has historically been the risky process of downloading executable programs from the Net

Chrome Version: 4.0.220.1, released Friday, "introduces the Native Client as a built-in feature for the first time on Windows," said Jonathan Conradt, a Google engineering program manager, in a blog post about the release. Previously the software was available only as a browser plug-in.

Google also offers a variety of basic tests and more elaborate examples of what Native Client can do, though it takes a bit of technical configuration to get them working. Among them are spinning ray-traced globes, the Game of Life, and the Quake first-person shooter video game.

Native Client shows how Google is using Chrome as a vehicle to advance its Web programming agenda. While some competitors such as Microsoft have a strong business of software that runs natively on a computer, Google wants software to run on central servers on the Internet.

This cloud computing approach has some advantages--being able to more easily collaborate and share documents for example, or to see and edit documents using any PC or smartphone. Google was born on the Web and has an incumbent's advantage there over rivals, but as an applications foundation, the Web remains slow and primitive compared to native applications in many regards.