Last Friday, BoomTown paid a visit to James Joaquin, who has just been officially appointed the new CEO of Foxmarks, the Mitch Kapor-backed start-up that makes a free bookmarking and password syncing add-on for the Firefox browser.

The San Francisco-based company had also has gotten $5 million in funding from Redpoint Ventures earlier this summer. Initially, Foxmarks had been founded and seed-funded by Kapor, the well-known tech entrepreneur, and also got an additional investment from First Round Capital.

With the arrival of Joaquin, Foxmarks is trying to move into a mode of carving out a business with its assets, including using its data and expanding beyond the Firefox browser.

Here is the video interview with Joaquin about all that and more:

Finally, Google Co-Founder Larry Page takes the microphone and thanks the Chrome browser team and compliments them for their efforts.

This is–as anyone on the receiving end of Page’s sometimes pointed manner knows (and BoomTown has been)–a big deal.

Page also starts to talk about how browser choice and innovation could make the planet a better place.

Of course! World peace through better browsing!

Then he moves on to questions from the media, bringing some of the Chrome team up to the stage.

There’s a sequence of very serious questions on how to move tabs, privacy, mobile issues, WebKit, bug testing, Incognito, distribution plans and ongoing support for Mozilla’s Firefox (yes, it will continue–plus, Mozilla HQ is across the street! Hmmm…).

Ooops–the other Google (GOOG) Co-Founder, Sergey Brin, suddenly arrives late. He slips into the lineup of “Inside the Actors Studio”-type chairs, looking like he just woke up, in what is a classic move by Microsoft’s Bill Gates that I like to call the “bed-head maneuver.” (I like the spanking red Crocs though!)

It’s a sleepy ruse, as it turns out, as Brin deftly deflects a question about whether Chrome is an operating system for the Web, given that Internet navigation software has become so integral to consumer behavior.

As in, a Windows killer!

Nope, says Brin (full video answer to come), totally ignoring my dubious look.

The distribution question is key, of course, since Google will want to get Chrome out there. So what’s the secret sauce? Because it is a “great product,” says Page.

As to why Google was doing this, VP Sundar Pichal said the search giant wanted to “start from scratch” in the browser game. Like baking a really good cake, one would assume.

When no reporter would get up and ask the obvious what-about-tweaking-Microsoft question, I finally did and also asked about the business plan for Chrome–as in, how will it help Google make more money?

Both Brin and Page answer again that it’s all about providing choice and also keeping the Web open, which will spur usage, which will rain more magical moolah down on the Googleplex.

Also (and video to come on this too), Brin later adds, Google never thinks of Microsoft (MSFT).

Well, at least on that issue it seems we’re back to Pinocchio–the long-nosed version–again.

Soon to come: BoomTown’s Chrome Launch video and one of just the sleepy-as-a-fox Brin on Chrome!

Until then, here’s the exclusive review in his Personal Technology column of the new Google Chrome browser by AllThingsD.com’s Walt Mossberg, which was published at the same time as the news of its product launch was announced by the search behemoth this morning.

Walt’s reaction is mixed:

“My verdict: Chrome is a smart, innovative browser that, in many common scenarios, will make using the Web faster, easier and less frustrating. But this first version–which is just a beta, or test, release–is rough around the edges and lacks some common browser features Google plans to add later.”

Anyone can now download Chrome, but Walt has been testing it for a week. He also reviews Microsoft’s newest version of its powerful Internet Explorer, called IE8, which he likes better than Chrome.

Money quote: “The second beta version of IE8 is the best edition of Internet Explorer in years. It is packed with new features of its own, some of which are similar to those in Chrome, and some of which, in my view, top Chrome’s features.”

A little tarnish on the Chrome, it seems.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

As was reported earlier this morning by BoomTown, Google has confirmed on its blog that it will launch its new Chrome browser tomorrow.

Google (GOOG) said it would be launching Chrome in 100 countries, but it will only be in beta in Windows (Google said Mac and Linux versions were coming soon).

The move by the search giant, although the blog does not say so, is clearly a direct shot over the bow of Microsoft (MSFT), which dominates the browser market with 74 percent share.

Here is the blog post in full:

A fresh take on the browser

Posted by Sundar Pichai, VP Product Management, and Linus Upson, Engineering Director

Also, here is the entire comic book Google is using to explain the technical aspects of Chrome, and here is Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski with a CliffNotes version of the comic (believe me, you’ll need it).

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

In its most frontal and aggressive attack on Microsoft yet, sources with knowledge of the project said Google is preparing to unveil a new browser–ready for download to users as early as tomorrow–to try to loosen Microsoft’s iron grip on the most important piece of software for navigating the Internet.

In addition, Google Blogoscoped has published a comic book that Google is apparently using to explain the technical aspects of its open-source browser, which is called Chrome.

[UPDATE: Here is a post on Google's official confirmation of the browser launch in 100 countries tomorrow, which was released on its blog this afternoon. The beta version will be initially available only for Windows, but Google said Mac and Linux versions were coming soon.]

Until now, the Google-Microsoft battles felt more like a Cold War, mostly limited to Google (GOOG) poking at Microsoft (MSFT) via the development of small-scale Web-based software to compete with Microsoft’s dominant Word, PowerPoint and other such products, and Microsoft’s thus-far unsuccessful attempts to break Google’s lock on the search market.

But with this move, which has been rumored since 2004, the war most definitely has gone red-hot, as Google aims to grab a chunk of Microsoft’s huge browser market share, which various surveys put at about three-quarters of the market.

The efforts to do this have been well known within the company for a long time, although the timing of its launch has not.

But Google FedExed the comic too early to Blogoscoped–who is based in Germany–and possibly others, which makes BoomTown really appreciate express mail more than ever.

(I also obtained a copy and have posted the comic book here, and Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski has written a quick executive summary of it.)

Sources said Google has made the move to create and distribute a browser due to worry about what new features in IE8 could do to its search business.

These features include privacy changes that could prevent Google from collecting information related to the effectiveness of its ads, quick-linking to Microsoft mapping and other offerings, and a more robust search bar that is also more Microsoft-centric.

To combat Microsoft’s IE dominance in recent years, Google has been backing Mozilla’s Firefox browser, which grew out of the ashes of the once-powerful, now-irrelevant Netscape browser like a phoenix to claim an astonishing 18 percent of the market.

That market share has climbed from 11 percent just two years ago–even against Microsoft’s IE juggernaut with 74 percent and Apple’s Safari browser with six percent.

Mozilla’s recent launch of Firefox 3 had a record-setting debut day in mid-June, with 8.3 million downloads in 24 hours.

Google recently renewed a deal with Mozilla making its search engine the homepage and search bar default until 2011. In return, Google pays Mozilla royalties for Google ad clicks that come from searches originating in the Firefox browser.

(Here’s a recent post I did about a visit I made to Mozilla’s HQ, right around the corner from Google, as well as a video interview I did with its CEO John Lilly.)

But obviously, Mozilla’s efforts were not enough for Google, which clearly has decided it must own and distribute a browser, especially since the browser has become the most significant piece of software related to the Internet, and the fulcrum on which most of Google’s business lies.

In other words, Google is declaring the browser critical to its future and, in this regard, it is entirely right.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Before John Lilly got the CEO job at Mozilla Corporation, I had visited the HQ of the the open-source software nonprofit foundation and also a for-profit start-up–famous for its increasingly popular Firefox browser (logo pictured here) and red dragon logo–on Landings Drive in Mountain View.

I toured the place and took video note of a freakishly large sculpture made of soda cans and the biggest couch I have ever seen. In other words, just another typical Silicon Valley company.

Here’s an inside look at Mozilla HQ:

So aQuantive as an investment is kind of like John Travolta’s career: It really all depends on when you catch him. Are you getting the epoch-defining ‘Saturday Night Fever’ or its unpalatable sequel ‘Staying Alive’? ‘Pulp Fiction’ or ‘Michael’?

Just Microsoft’s luck, Travolta is about to headline the new ‘Hairspray’ in drag.”

Was it just me, or did a vision of Steve Ballmer in drag just pop into your head?

And while I gave a taste of my visit to celebrity news and gossip site, TMZ.com (with a fuller report to come tomorrow), I also would point you to a superb site in the same genre of celebrity-trashing called The Superficial, which is anything but that.

Though the topics are as deep as Britney without makeup, Jessica Simpson getting dumped and just about every starlet bikini shot in existence (along with all the many clothing malfunctions of this particular subspecies of humanity), the great pictures mixed with a sarcastic and funny writing style make this a daily destination for me. Like this on Pamela Anderson getting booed at Cannes:

Pamela Anderson got booed at the Cannes Film Festival today when she showed up late for a photo session and only stuck around for a few minutes. Which is lame, better there’s so many better things to be booing. Like war. Or terrorism. Or your kid’s piano recital.”

This is a nice piece in the New York Times about what happens when a volunteer effort–in this case Mozilla’s success with the Firefox browser–is a big hit. Money quote:

So far, no one has figured out how to balance keeping an open-source or collaborative project fully financed while remaining independent and noncommercial. Wikipedia, for example, holds occasional fund-raisers, while its leaders debate if it should take steps toward some sort of sponsorship or advertising.”

And the Washington Post has a solid story today about the Democrats’ domination over the Republicans when it comes to using the Internet. One GOP operative, in charge of President Bush’s Internet strategy in the 2004 campaign, notes, “We’re losing the Web right now.”

While I suspect that might be the least of the Republican worries, the unique visitors and the money raised tell the tale better about the inability of Republicans to close the information gap now or perhaps ever.

Or get used to its tools, as the article notes, like instant video that can highlight some not-so-pretty things like the “macaca” moment from former Sen. George Allen, which was the beginning of the end of his recent campaign.

But to me, the lagging Republican Party with regards to the Web (except to introduce legislation to hinder it) has been true ever since Al Gore was integral to the legislation that spurred the creation of the commercial Internet. He may not have invented it, but it most certainly would never have been where it is today without him.