Google made big headlines last month with the launch of the Nexus One smartphone and its adventures in China. But the steady growth of its Chrome Web browser may turn out  to be an equally important story, particularly with its browser-based Chrome OS on the way.

In January, Chrome climbed to 5.2 percent of the global browser market, up from 4.6 percent in December, according to Web metrics company NetApplications. Meanwhile, Microsoft's Internet Explorer fell from 62.7 percent to 62.2 percent of the market, and Mozilla saw Firefox slip from 24.6 percent to 24.4 percent.

Turns out unbundling Internet Explorer from Windows isn't impossible after all.

Microsoft, which is being investigated by the European Commission for squashing browser competition, announced late yesterday that the European version of Windows 7 won't include IE.