1266 Google Chrome is a beta web browser by Google, created to be a modern platform for web pages and applications. It utilizes very fast loading of web pages and has a V8 engine, which is a custom built JavaScript engine. Because Google has used parts from Apple's Safari and Firefox browsers, they made the project open source.

The Google Chrome blog ( http://bit.ly/9fxMW2 ) says:

Here in Aarhus, Denmark -- home of the V8 project, Chrome’s JavaScript engine -- we’ve been tuning, testing, and polishing the V8 engine to give Chrome a hefty boost in speed.

Today’s new beta release incorporates one of Chrome’s most significant speed and performance increases to date, with 30% and 35% improvement on the V8 and SunSpider benchmarks over the previous beta channel release. In fact, looking back in time, Chrome’s performance has improved by as much as 213% and 305% on these two benchmarks since our very first beta.

Today’s beta release also includes a handful of new features. Not too long ago, we introduced bookmark sync into the browser, which allows you to keep your bookmarks synchronized on multiple computers using your Google Account. Beta users can now synchronize not only bookmarks, but also browser preferences including themes, homepage and startup settings, web content settings, and language. By popular demand especially from avid Chrome extensions users, you can now install and use Chrome extensions while in incognito mode.

Under the hood, today’s release contains the goodness of some new HTML5 features, namely Geolocation APIs, App Cache, web sockets, and file drag-and-drop capabilities. Additionally, this is the first Chrome beta that features initial integration of the Adobe Flash Player plug-in with Chrome, so that you can browse a rich, dynamic web with added security and stability - you’ll automatically receive security and feature updates for Flash Player with Chrome’s auto-update mechanism.

Lastly, with this beta’s crazy speed improvements, we designed a series of equally unconventional speed tests for the browser. While the V8 and SunSpider benchmarks have their strengths, we felt that more could be done to measure speed on the browser. Here’s an early preview of how we designed, built, and implemented these speed tests. Stay tuned for the full results; we’ll post them here tomorrow.

Watching web pages load at 2700 frames per second reveals unexpected artifacts. If you're interested in the technical details, read on in the video's description drop-down in YouTube.

New features in the Chrome 5.0.375.29 beta include:
• Preference synchronization to accompany the browser's "bookmark syncing" feature.
• Use extensions in "incognito mode."
• HTML5 improvements for geolocation, application cache, web sprockets, and file drag and drop capability.
• Google's "Native Client" mode enabled using by launching Chrome from the command line using the "--enable-nacl --no-sandbox" flags.
• The update includes Adobe's flash player, which will be updatable with Chrome's built-in autoupdate feature.

Making the Google Chrome Speed Tests (video) - These speed tests were filmed at actual web page rendering times. You can check it out at:
http://macblips.dailyradar.com/video/making-the-google-chrome-speed-tests/

Here are a few creative interpretations of Google Chrome's key features:

Speed
Google Chrome loads pages and runs web applications in a snap.

Stability
Google Chrome is built for stability. If an individual tab freezes or crashes, the other tabs are unaffected.

Security
Browse the web more safely with malware and phishing protection built into Google Chrome.

New Tab page
Visit your favorite websites easily from the New Tab page. When you open a new tab, the sites you visit most often are readily available.

Omnibox
Use the Omnibox to type both web addresses and searches in Google Chrome.

Themes
Customize your browser with themes from artists around the world.

Incognito mode
When you don't want your website visits to be recorded in your browser history, you can browse in incognito mode. (A handy feature for planning surprise gifts and birthdays!)

System requirements:
Mac OS X 10.5.6 or later

Platform Support
Intel

Download link:
http://www.google.com/chrome/

Video on Chrome extensions:
http://tinyurl.com/yd8ulyf

You can read the Chrome terms of service (EULA) here:
http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/eula_dev.html?dl=mac

Tags: Software Updates ï Internet ï Software News ï

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