Google has made its first foray into the world of web browsers with Google Chrome.

The search giant claims that its new offering will provide a faster, more reliable and cleaner alternative to those currently on offer.

Available in beta for Windows, the new browser features a process manager which means that each individual tab can run separate processes. If one crashes it will not affect the running of the other tabs.

A Task Manager allows users to see which sites are using the most memory, and the browser uses a newly-built V8 JavaScript engine.

David Mitchell, an analyst at Ovum, said: "They're beginning to make the browser far more similar to the operating system. It's more an operating environment than a web engine.

"There is space for Google in the browser market, but I'm not sure who it will take it from. At the moment it could be from everyone, rather than any one specific player."

Mitchell added that Google could offer the new browser as part of a download combination package including search and email.

Other features in Google Chrome include an auto-suggest function that will throw up suggestions for searches, as well as the top pages a user has visited before, and popular sites.

There is also full-text search functionality for browsing history, removing the need for bookmarks, and when a user opens a new tab they will be presented with their nine most visited pages alongside the most searched-for sites.

"We realised that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser," wrote Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management, and Linus Upson, engineering director, on the Google Blog.

"What we really needed was not just a browser, but a modern platform for web pages and applications. That's what we set out to build."

Google has created a 38-page comic explaining the technology.

Google Blogoscoped has some 'leaked' screenshots here.