I saw this ad in an RSS feed today:
The ad was served up by Google’s AdSense network.
I guess Google feels a bit threatened by Windows 8. That link leads to this Google on Windows 8 page:
And indeed, the latest builds of Chrome do allow you to replace Internet Explorer on the Start screen and in the full-screen Windows 8 (aka Metro) environment.
Any Google users out there tried this yet?
Ed Bott (@ wordpress.com) 
Yes, I have. I personally like the metro version of IE better than Chrome, mostly due to the ability to quickly pin sites to the start screen. This functionality is not available in Chrome (not sure if Microsoft makes that feature available or not, but I assume they do given the functionality is present in other apps).
The weird thing is that it seems that only one Metro browser seems to work at a time. It appears that if you make one Metro browser the default, the other browser will only work in desktop mode.
I also have the Google search app, but it has been a bit flaky for me. Things don’t load as well as they should for a Google product. It’s like the very early days of Chrome (when half the sites on the internet didn’t load). Hopefully it will get better??? In the mean time, it hasn’t halted my slow shift to Bing.
I used it as soon as I got Windows 8.
I wouldn’t say that they have done it because they fear Windows 8; more they are interested in helping their users. The the first thing most people do with a new PC is get their favourite browser. All Google are doing is helping you do it in the now slightly foreign environment Windows 8 provides.
Google are the first guys (that I have noticed) to make an App that works in Desktop mode or Metro mode – not one or the other/both simultaneously (which can be very confusing!). It works well.
One thing about Google is they’re pretty quick to parry any MS competitive move. Sort of like MS back in the 90’s and hopefully will be again one day. I think that’s what this is; MS put up a potential block, Google responded to take that off the board.
Like Matt, I really don’t follow your logic that advertising your product on a new platform means you’re feeling threatened by that platform. That makes little sense. Targeted advertising to a new platform doesn’t mean you don’t feel threatened, but nor does it mean you do.
If you want to see an example of a company that does feel threatened by Windows 8 and how they’re reacting, try Valve and http://steamforlinux.com/ . Economics: if you feel a new version of a platform threatens your business model, you try to diversify your userbase away from that platform.
Well, the product they are advertising replaces the default browser and default search ap on that new platform, both of which are directly competitive with Google. So this is a little more than just advertising on a new platform.
As an extreme newby (noob, for those who must….) to Windows 8 (having just downloaded and “tested” it out for the first time last night, I am a bit confused about all this. Google was my default search engine prior to the installation of W8 and when W8 finally came up Google showed up on the Start screen as the default search engine again, along with trying to become my homepage – which I did not want. So, I haven’t lost Google at all. I seem to have lost several other things, but Google isn’t one of them.
The Google apps works very nicely on my Surface RT. Glad to see it there. I don’t hate Bing, but Google’s methods tend to suit me better. The voice search is amazing fast. I hope they bring out Chrome for ARM soon too.
I don’t know if Google is threatened or not, but I am impressed that they are actually asking permission for a change…and without any apparent misrepresentation.