Sources say that Google is designing a number of new web tools and have few former Microsoft staff to help on the development. One of them is understood to be the key person in the early development of Internet Explorer.

To back the idea, Google recently registered the web address "gbrowser.com" on April 26, according to a record shown at a domain-name database. Employees of the company have also recently filed a patent application for delivering ads to client-side applications, including a Web browser or browser plug-in.