Google Removes Chrome Download Link from the Homepage

I rarely go to Google’s homepage myself (mainly using search bars) but when I went there to see a special logo they have today for Large Hadron Collider start-up day I noticed something unusual in addition to the new logo - and that unusual thing was absence of the Chrome download link that Google placed on the homepage to get more people using Chrome from its most powerful resource - search page.

My guess is that the team has realized that the browser is not ready for such a large-scale and very public testing at this early stage. Chances are they thought it was more ready for launch initially but frequent reports of crashes of the browser and persistent attempts by users to crash it deliberately made the team change their minds.

I believe the main reason for the problem is that after 4 years of Gmail in beta we have come to expect way too much when we are offered a beta product by Google. And probably this is what has happened to Chrome - everyone thought it was almost ready when apparently it was not.

So now that Google has realized this fact they have decided to remove the download link from the homepage and this will definitely limit the userbase for the new browser to a group of geeks that will probably keep using Chrome and helping improve it from iteration to iteration (by the way, Chrome is still available for download from its official site).

There has been no official announcement about the decision to remove the doanload link on the official Google blog yet (or maybe they did not want to attract undesirable attention to it) but I’ll update this post with official commentary if it is posted.

I personally thought advertising Chrome right there on Google’s homepage and pushing it to millions of users was way too early and it is good to see Google reconsidering this decision. After all, the product should be promoted this heavily only when it is ready for the mainstream market - which Chrome evidently is not.