Since its inception, Google’s Chrome browser has rapidly evolved and fixed many of its nascent flaws. It is now close to exiting the Beta stage, which will happen in January, and Google is actively moving to increase its market share, and give their fledgling a solid ramp from which to launch in the fight against Internet Explorer and Firefox.

In a statement to The Times, Google vice president Sundar Pichai told that the company is trying to come up with new ways to spread the Chrome around, and will to that effect “probably do distribution deals” with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to include the browser pre-installed with new PCs.

It’s facing tough odds with Internet Explorer holding more than 70 percent of the browser market share (largely due to being included by default with Windows which in turn is included with the same OEM new PCs). Not such cyclopean in scope, but still important is the open source Firefox, which holds some 20 percent. The rest is divided with well, the rest – Safari, Opera, and Chrome.

OEM deals are sure to give Chrome an edge, but it’s hard to mess with a browser embedded in the world’s most ubiquitous OS. Chrome is most likely to conquer the market slowly, starting first with niches like Netbooks where Microsoft software, including Windows itself, is far less encountered.

According to Pichai, versions of Chrome will also be available for Macintosh or Linux machines in the first half of 2009. The browser will thus be able to be used on almost 99 percent of the world’s computers.