With the formal beta launch of Chrome, Google is trying to redraw the browser-war battlelines. But with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer dominating 72 percent of the market share, why take them on—especially considering IE’s home-team advantage of being built into every Windows machine? Because Google wants your browser to do more than surf the Web. It already offers a free suite of software applications (e-mail, a word processor, spreadsheets, etc.) online—or in the “cloud,” untethered from your hard drive. Chrome serves them all up in one neat package, like an online operating system.