Gazelle (web browser)

Gazelle is a research web browser which Microsoft Research announced in early 2009.^[1] The central notion of the project is to apply operating system principles to browser construction.^[2] In particular, the browser has a secure kernel, modeled after an operating system kernel, and various web sources run as separate "principals" above that, similar to user-space processes in an operating system.^[2] The goal of doing this is to prevent bad code from one web source to affect the rendering or processing of code from other web sources.^[2] Browser plugins are also managed as principals.^[2]

By the July 2009 announcement of Google Chrome OS, Gazelle was seen as a possible alternative Microsoft architectural approach compared to Google's direction.^[3][4][5] That is, rather than the operating system being reduced in role to that of a browser, the browser would be strengthened using operating system principles.^[3]

ServiceOS is also related to the browser architectures.^[6]

References

1. "The Multi-Principal OS Construction of the Gazelle Web Browser" (Microsoft Research whitepaper, PDF)
2. "Gazelle: Applying Operating System Concepts to the Browser" OSNews July 7, 2009
3. "Microsoft's Gazelle browser takes a radical path" CNet July 7, 2009
4. "Google’s Chrome OS vs. Windows" The Week July 8, 2009
5. "Google Chrome OS: is it copying Microsoft's Gazelle or is it more like Splashtop?" The Guardian July 8, 2009
6. Resource Management for Web Applications in ServiceOS