Chromeless Chrome Web Apps

I'd like to develope web apps and distribute an installer with a chromeless window to the end user.

As I understand it, this is exactly what prism gives me, however I would like to use a webkit based browser, namely Google Chrome. However, I do not want to simply install shortcuts with parameters and then bundle the full Google Chrome browser in an installer. This would invoke the wrath of network admins etc, and complicate the process.

Is it possible to have a self contained app that comes with Google Chromes innards and relies on a website/app for its UI/functionality? Or am I forced to bundle Chrome with my installer?

ps: Building the & modifying Chromium project/source is not an option ps2: Extra points if you can hide the title bar for customising the entire window

Sounds like you're looking for something like Awesomium which does the grunt embedding work for you. Or Berkelium if you want a free variant.

I'm surprised nobody hasn't mentioned node-webkit from Intel yet. I think it does exactly what you want + allows you to use node.js modules too!

Extra points if you can hide the title bar for customising the entire window

It can!

This may not be exactly the answer you want, but I think it's sufficiently on topic to be appropriate:

Have you considered Adobe Air?

Sites written as Air apps can be used in any browser with a flash plugin, but can also be installed as 'self-contained' desktop applications. Check out parleys.com for a good example.

The application you create can run on many different platforms and you don't have to worry about window chrome (navigation buttons, title bar, status bar etc) when running as a desktop app. Air in a browser is also a lot better behaved than the Flash sites of yore - it's as bookmarkable and navigable as the sites created with traditional web technologies.

Nearly all of Google gears/ the other stuff which makes Chrome different from other browsers is now being implemented in HTML5 (development has stopped on most of the Google Gears streams).

If you just want a webkit based browser you can install on on MSWindows platforms you might want to have a look at Konqueror and the KHTML engine - although getting it to run on MSWindows independently of KDE is a bit tricky. But if you're not averse to writing some code (which you'll need to if you expect to integrate your own browser) then check out QT for MSWindows. There's a standard component implementing a webkit based browser. This is used in Arora (and possibly other browsers).

While there doesn't seem to be much information about customizing the furniture on Chrome, Firefox not only provides an API - they encourage people to develop custom front ends.

On Andriod you can launch a browser session with no furniture using webview - but this approach obviously does not work with MacOS/Linux/Microsoft desktop systems (unless you are using the Android emulator).

You could also look at http://code.google.com/p/chromiumembedded/ which seems to be reasonably active.

in 2016/2017, perhaps electron is the best answer. It basically gives you all of the power of a browser with not of its (security-)limitations.