Strikes me as a very catchy name for the typical user, who most likely doesn't have "browser chrome" in their vocabulary already. And I doubt it'll be that hard for the rest of us to keep straight.

You're probably right, but there are so many other potential catchy names that aren't the same as Mozilla's interface layer, so I don't know why they couldn't have just gone with one of those and made it easier on everyone.

I think it may indicate the project started as a Chrome layer on top of Gecko and they decided mid-project to use WebKit instead.

Just a tought.

They may as well change the name.

... but only after it's been in beta for at least 4 years.

it's the interface layer in Flex/AIR too. i don't think it's that unique to Mozilla.

Chrome has been called chrome since time immemorial. I remember that's what it was called in the IE-vs-Netscape days. You know, the days that drove me to become a Flash developer.

Scoble has an interesting take on this - http://bit.ly/4oioQZ

"Several years ago Microsoft had a project code-named Chrome. It was supposed to be a multimedia browser. The project was killed a few weeks away from shipping."