Google has launched new stable versions of its Chrome browser for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
"Since last December, we’ve been chipping away at bugs and building in new features to get the Mac and Linux versions caught up with the Windows version, and now we can finally announce that the Mac and Linux versions are ready for prime time," says Chrome product manager Brian Rakowski.
Google says the new releases are the fastest yet. For reference, check out Google’s recent speed tests for Chrome:
"We’ve improved by 213 percent and 305 percent in Javascript performance by the V8 and SunSpider benchmarks since our very first beta, back in Chrome’s Cretaceous period (September 2008)," says Rakowski.
New Chrome features (other than speed improvement) include the ability to sync browser preferences (bookmarks, themes, homepage and startup settings, web content settings, preferred languages, and page zoom settings) across multiple computers, new HTML5 capabilities (Geolocation APIs, App Cache, web sockets, and file drag-and-drop), and a new bookmark manager.
"For a taste of HTML5’s powerful features, try browsing through websites developed in HTML5 such as scribd.com, dragging and dropping attachments in Gmail, or by enabling the geolocation functionality in Google Maps," says Rakowski.
Google has also fixed numerous minor issues, such as non-exploitable crashes, hangs, and other annoyances, according to Anthony Laforge of the Chrome team.
The new stable release does not include Adobe Flash Player integration, but Google has been beta testing this and plans to enable it soon.
Later this year, Google will open the Chrome Web Store, which will feature a gallery of web apps that will actually work not only with Chrome, but other web browsers. However, Chrome users will be able to create convenient shortcuts for easily accessing the apps they download.