Preview Google Earth on web across browsers

By Artem Klimov and Jessi Beck, Software Engineers, Google Earth; Jordon Mears, Tech Lead Manager, Google Earth on Web

Recently, we shared an update on our progress bringing Google Earth to more desktop browsers. We hinted that we’d be rolling out Earth using WebAssembly, and today we’re excited to share access to a preview!

Visit this link to try our public beta of Earth on web using WebAssembly (WASM), a W3C standard technology that is starting to be supported by the major browser vendors. You’ll need to use this link every time to try the beta. Keep in mind that this is a preview beta of Google Earth that may not be as smooth as you’re used to (try out regular Earth for web). You can experiment with this beta in Chrome (including Chromium), Firefox, Edge (Canary version) and Opera.

The challenges of bringing Earth to more browsers

One way to think about Google Earth is as a really big video game of the whole world. As a result, Google Earth is mostly written in C++ native code, not typically a language you use in the browser. We do this for two main reasons: performance and reuse of code across platforms (Android, iOS, and web).

Specifically, in order to bring Earth to the web, we have been using a technology called Native Client (NaCl) to compile and run this code in Chrome. Using NaCl allowed us to launch Earth on the web in 2017. However, it is now a deprecated Chrome-only technology that is being replaced by WebAssembly. As the web continues to evolve, we look forward to seeing browser vendors continue to adopt WebAssembly and continue to push the web to new limits.

Note that WebAssembly is still an emerging technology, but continuing to grow. WebAssembly itself comes in two forms: single and multiple-threaded. Some browsers offer support for running Earth in a multi-threaded mode and others don’t. We are offering both forms of Earth in this beta in order to include as many browsers as possible, but you can expect performance to be a bit slower in single-threaded mode.

What’s next?

This beta is a big step in bringing Google Earth to as many browsers as possible. By sharing preview access to Earth on WebAssembly, we can gather performance and compatibility metrics on a larger scale, while getting feedback from as many users as possible before rolling this out to everyone. Your feedback will help us polish the experience on more browsers and inform our performance improvements. Look for more news in the future as we bring Earth to more users, wherever they’re browsing.

Please give this beta a try and let us know how it goes by sending feedback in the product, or by leaving a comment in the Earth Help Community.