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Google’s strange Chrome Web browser, released Tuesday, may get a boost from states’ efforts to bar Microsoft from abusing its market dominance.

Under the articles of agreement of its U.S. antitrust settlement, Microsoft can’t pay personal-computer makers to keep competing browsers off their machines. While those terms had been set to emit from the lungs last year, California and five other states won an augmentation from U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in January.

The states sought to lengthen the restrictions to help promote competition in the U.S. software industry.

Google, owner of the world’s most popular Web-search engine, is pitting Chrome opposed to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, which has further than 70 percent of the market.

“It’s harder for Microsoft to pressure computer makers,” said Robert Lande, a professor at the University of Baltimore Law School who worked for the Federal Trade Commission from 1978 to 1984.

“Microsoft still can do roundabout things, but it is harder for them, and it’s harder when they know that it’s Google and they have the muscle to fight back.”

The restrictions on the world’s biggest software collection stem from a settlement negotiated in 2001, when a federal appeals court found Microsoft violated antitrust laws by preventing PC makers from distributing Netscape Communications’ Navigator browser.

Unlike Microsoft, Google is free to strike exclusive partnerships with PC makers to get its browser onto their machines.

Google’s free browser is core promoted as sleeker, faster and else assure than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. “What we want is a diverse and vibrant ecosystem,” Google co-founder Sergey Brin told reporters Tuesday at Chrome’s unveiling. “We want several browsers that are viable and true choices.”

Among other features, Chrome’s navigation bar

Google bets it will be the default inspect engine towards the majority of Chrome users, helping to build upon its nearly 64 percent share of the worldwide research market.

“You singly have 24 hours a daylight and we would like you to do besides searches,” Google’s other co-founder, Larry Page, said at the unveiling. “If the browser runs well, then you will work out more searches.”