Microsoft's "Gazelle" browser detailed -- it's more of a research project

If you're particularly attuned to tech gossip, you'll know that Google's Chrome OS announcement has prompted a lot of whispers about something called "Gazelle" being cooked up in Microsoft's labs. Part browser, part OS, the word on the street is that Gazelle will be announced soon, and ultimately compete in some way with either Chrome (the browser) or Chrome (the OS). As usual, most of this is just based on hopes and fairytales, but the scholarly folks at Ars Technica have done some digging and come up with a white paper from Microsoft Research that details some of what Gazelle is all about -- and surprise surprise, although it shares some similarities with Chrome, it's actually quite different.

At the most general level, Gazelle is an experiment in building an ultrasecure browser. Like Chrome, it breaks tasks up into different processes, but instead of separating at the page level, Gazelle breaks individual page elements into different processes, allowing content from different servers to be isolated and ultimately providing fine-grained security controls. To manage all these different processes, there's a central "kernel," which is where all the OS talk stems from -- it's all still running on Windows, and the rendering engine is still IE's Trident engine, but Gazelle manages all those separate processes independently, kind of like a virtualized OS. It's certainly interesting stuff, but it's still all just a research project for now -- Chrome OS is still vapor, but it's clear that Google intends to ship something, while Gazelle seems more suited to inspire future versions of IE. Still, it's interesting reading if you're into it, so hit the read link for more.

Read - Ars Technica analysis
Read - Microsoft Gazelle white paper [Warning: PDF]

[Image courtesy of Robert Scoble]

[Chas Underwood III @ Jul 17th 2009 7:06AM]

I love that Google is sparking so much innovation and renewed competition throughout every aspect of computing. Way to go Google...just don't be evil!

[sircastor @ Jul 10th 2009 5:01PM]

Agreed. I love that Google can make Microsoft squirm and encourage them to innovate and work to keep their customers.

[AnnoyingPoster @ Jul 10th 2009 5:16PM]

not likely, this paper was a while ago, and the chrome os was only released a few days ago. the news from the chrome os lead to people digging up papers from microsoft. neither influenced each other because they were somewhat done in secrecy, but its interesting to see how great minds think alike.

good stuff, im interested in the security aspects of this research.

[kkl1014 @ Jul 10th 2009 5:16PM]

I agree. Google's shaping up to be the competitor to Microsoft that Apple never could be.

[Beastage @ Jul 10th 2009 6:23PM]

Not even close, Gazelle been in development/research for months now, Chrome OS is 1y away, MS don't feel the need like Apple and Google to run to the press with every little project.

[WixosTrix @ Jul 10th 2009 9:15PM]

I agree with Chas.

Even if this project was in research before Chrome OS, Google still has influenced Microsoft to step up and innovate more effeciently, at least, just as Apple, Mozilla, etc. has done. Microsoft didn't have any strong competition for a while so they kinda sat on their asses, somewhat. Competition benefits the consumer so I'm happy about this and find it interesting who can gain and maintain marketshare.

[Warren @ Jul 10th 2009 4:50PM]

If it eliminates security warnings and other annoying bubbles that pop up at the bottom right of the screen - then its a step in the right direction I think.

[Clyde Berry @ Jul 10th 2009 5:55PM]

But those bubbles aren't really a bad thing. I kind of like knowing exactly what is allowed on what isn't on my computer.

[Ryan Trevisol @ Jul 10th 2009 5:57PM]

In a logical world, I think it would reduce the number of security dialogs, but in Microsoft's world, it will actually lead to exponentially more . . . .

"Element online 369 wants to execute an ActiveX control that could be potentally unsafe. Allow or Deny?"

[Ryan Trevisol @ Jul 10th 2009 5:58PM]

There was a < div > html tag in that post. . . .

[M. @ Jul 10th 2009 4:52PM]

I'm sorry for going so offtopic but no podcast today?

[Terry @ Jul 10th 2009 5:53PM]

Since we're already off topic:

I can't get any images at all from Engadget (and HD, and Joystiq) from since about 2 days ago. I thought it would pass, but it's still as persistent as ever... Is it just me, or did AOL forget to pay the bill this month? What's the deal?

[bondsbw @ Jul 12th 2009 3:43PM]

Engadget could really use a forum... I know there's a Contact Us form, but that doesn't quite cut it IMHO.

And Engadget needs a better commenting system... this comment system is incredibly outdated, and doesn't offer a way to reply to a specific reply, or a way to choose more/less than 50 comments per page, and I have no idea if it supports HTML or BBCode or what.

Which brings me to my next complaint... it doesn't support preview. So since I'm already so incredibly off-topic, I guess I'll test HTML/BBCode now... maybe it'll be useful for more than just me:

HTML: Bold Italics Underlined Strikethrough Url Monospaced Large Red
BBCode: [b]Bold[/b] [i]Italics[/i] [u]Underlined[/u] [s]Strikethrough[/s] [url=http://engadget.com]Url[/url] [code]Monospaced[/code] [size=15]Large[/size] [color=#FF0000]Red[/color]

[bondsbw @ Jul 12th 2009 3:44PM]

That answers my question... HTML strips tags and displays the text, no BBCode support whatsoever, and URLs are automatically linked.

[Lando Calrissian @ Jul 10th 2009 4:53PM]

I've touched the light post in that picture.

[Jay Voorhees @ Jul 10th 2009 4:57PM]

not as much as that light post touched you....

[Uncontrol @ Jul 10th 2009 5:06PM]

"and the rendering engine is still IE's Trident engine,"

pass

[edoles @ Jul 10th 2009 5:09PM]

"Warning: PDF"..... wtf? Should I be afraid of the rest of the PDFs on my hard drive?

[GingerFox @ Jul 10th 2009 5:14PM]

Yeah, dint you hear? Those formats are going to be responsible for the world ending in 2012 if theres enough of them, delete them while you have the chance!

[wyatt @ Jul 10th 2009 5:22PM]

that's funny, i was just going to make a post thanking engadget for giving this warning.

and also to give Nilay props for mostly avoiding the usual tone taken with posts about this company.

[I hate mingers @ Jul 10th 2009 6:34PM]

A pedo where?

[UnixSystemsEngineer @ Jul 10th 2009 5:09PM]

MSR does some great work, it's where many of the truly bright minds are.

[qwack @ Jul 10th 2009 5:22PM]

Fanboy.

[UnixSystemsEngineer @ Jul 10th 2009 5:26PM]

Quack.

[Ed T @ Jul 10th 2009 7:19PM]

You mean it's where great minds go to die. Redmond spends 10X more on "R&D" than any of its competitors and it has squat to show for it. After they fire Ballmer, the board of directors should just turn off the electricity in the R&D buildings. Eventually all the geniuses there would get the message and leave to work somewhere else. Who knows, they might even come up with something useful.

[John @ Jul 10th 2009 10:32PM]

MS R&D is amazing - just because you have no idea about the research projects that MS has done AND are too stupid to put two and two together regarding the Xbox (what a failure that was, right?) doesn't mean that they don't do anything. Microsoft has tons of internal projects in R&D and most of them (like Gazelle) are not supposed to be for commercial release - it's taking an idea as far as it can possibly be taken and then seeing what works and what doesn't.

[William @ Jul 10th 2009 5:14PM]

even Norton warns me about opening Internet Explorer...

[AnnoyingPoster @ Jul 10th 2009 5:17PM]

yes but avg warns me of opening norton, so what does that tell you.

[E C S Sucks @ Jul 10th 2009 5:19PM]

You are moaning about IE but you use Norton?

[Luis Dias @ Jul 10th 2009 5:18PM]

Well, I'd say Project Natal impressed me. All the XBox venture almost seems un-MS-ish to me, because it's working fairly well and with big competition. So despite the fact that this is obviously just a "me-too" whining from MS people that shed tears for lack of attention, at least Google is making them work harder.

I just hope that Google doesn't win this race as it won the internet space. They are increasingly scary to me.

[E C S Sucks @ Jul 10th 2009 5:20PM]

How is it me too?

[richb93 @ Jul 10th 2009 5:25PM]

My thoughts exactly. Stop buggering around Microsoft. It's not as if you even need to make a new rendering engine. Just use WebKit already.

[iDavey @ Jul 10th 2009 5:25PM]

I like the sound of that.
The main thing that makes me choose Chrome over the other browsers is the separate processes amongst the screen real estate.

I like being able to close a tab and not lose my others.
They should have implemented this ages ago.

[MioTheGreat @ Jul 10th 2009 10:39PM]

Actually, Internet Explorer 8 already splits tabs into their own sandboxed processes, just like Chrome does. IE7 started the trend with spinning various browsing processes off on a per-security zone basis.

I'm not actually sure who came up with the idea first.

[iKurt 7 @ Jul 10th 2009 6:46PM]

Microsoft copying Google... is this suppose to be a surprise?

[Dr Zoidberg @ Jul 11th 2009 7:30AM]

You being a dick ... Is this supposed to be a suprise?

[Kumar @ Jul 10th 2009 5:30PM]

Nice counter by MS. Since the Chrome OS is about as real as this Gazelle, it helps diffuse the media attention. It's like saying, no worries, we already have that covered, but thanks for playing.

Hopefully both make it to reality, as competition -> innovation -> better stuff -> lower prices ;)

[Phil @ Jul 10th 2009 5:39PM]

Because we all know how prohibitively expensive browsers are these days, what with the bottom falling out of the economy and inflation and all.

[ash chapman @ Jul 10th 2009 6:25PM]

I could barely scrape together enough for the Firefox 3.5 update. All in all, I'd say it was worth the money I paid.

[mabhatter @ Jul 10th 2009 8:29PM]

this is the "Amhtal Effect" IBM invented years ago. Google and Mozilla both have similar features, although not so advanced. This isn't a real project, just something M$ PR dug out of the "geek closet" to distract from what other people are doing.

move along folks.

[guy943 @ Jul 10th 2009 5:34PM]

I still don't get the concept of a part OS, part browser system. It sounds like Windows was with IE integrated into it. Which was bad.

Can anybody explain what "part OS, part browser" means aside from "No, it will definitely not run Crysis"?

[Samurai Jack @ Jul 10th 2009 5:36PM]

Ah, nostalgia! It feels like the old days, when an upstart competitor would announce a product and garner loads of press. A few days later Microsoft would announce that they were working on something similar, and that it would be coming to market "soon". Everyone would wait to see what Microsoft would do and not buy the competitors' product. The competitor would fail and go out of business and Microsoft would deliver something not quite as good. Or nothing at all.

Something tells me that won't work with Google. So I look forward to seeing what Gazelle will do and hope that Google actually proves to be a worthy rival that Microsoft actually fears. Because it's fear that truly drives innovation.

[Beastage @ Jul 10th 2009 6:26PM]

Except talk about Gazelle been around for months.

[ash chapman @ Jul 10th 2009 6:44PM]

Nicely put. As obvious as it sounds after I read it, I never knew Microsoft would run tactics like that. I either didn't pay attention or never connected the dots. Evil... brilliant but evil.

[John @ Jul 10th 2009 10:41PM]

Wow, you're right. Microsoft backdated the Gazelle whitepaper and paid Ars Technica to "dig it up". The wool has been lifted from my eyes. Or, perhaps you're some sort of tool. It's definitely one of those two though...

[alahmnat @ Jul 10th 2009 6:00PM]

I was interested until I saw the bit about it still using Trident. Now I really couldn't care less. Way to stay behind the times, Microsoft!

[KyleW @ Jul 10th 2009 6:08PM]

Why don't they just focus on getting CSS right first?

[AtomicPlayboy @ Jul 10th 2009 6:19PM]

WebTV was part browser, part OS. Not good, and I'm sure that was a good learning experience for Microsoft.

I'd like to see: Minwin kernel or 360 OS kernel (same thing?) with a Chrome-like lightweight browser and XBMC-like media features. Pretty much a more powerful version of my modded Xbox1, only with more extensive support for interfaces like USB and Bluetooth. Put this on netbooks, nettops, HTPCs, cable boxes, pretty much everything that doesn't need much local computational power.

Maybe this is already what they have in mind, and maybe this is about what we'll expect from Chrome OS. If so, I'll put it on every computing device I've got other than my gaming PC.

[Victor Stuber @ Jul 10th 2009 6:32PM]

I wish Micro$oft would focus on creating a browser that isn't 6 years behind the competition. Using Webkit would be a good start

[181 @ Jul 10th 2009 6:56PM]

To manage all these different processes, there's a central "kernel," which is where all hell breaks loose and security holes allow one hijacked process to easily take over the rest and eventually compromise the entire computer.