Google Announces New Stable Release of Chrome
IT News Online Staff
2009-09-16
Google has announced a new stable release of Google Chrome, kicking off the second year of its Web browser. Google Chrome 3 comes hot on the heels of 51 developer, 21 beta and 15 stable updates and 3,505 bugfixes in the past year.
For users, Google said the new release means significant speed improvements for the browser as well as a fresh redesign of some of its most loved features.
"This new release of Google Chrome is faster than ever, as we continue to provide a modern browser that starts up quickly from your desktop, and is fast to load Web pages and Web applications. Notably, we've improved by more than 150% in Javascript performance since our very first beta, and by more than 25% since the most recent stable release," said Anthony Laforge, Program Manager, Google Chrome.
The New Tab page in Google Chrome 3 sports a new look. The company has redesigned the New Tab page so that it's easy to use and easily customizable, following some rigorous testing on the most recent beta channel release. Users can now rearrange thumbnails of their most-visited Web sites by simply clicking and dragging the mouse. Additionally, users can pin thumbnails to a spot so they don't disappear even if one's browsing habits change. This way, users can easily get to the Web sites they care about with just one click.
Users can also further customize their New Tab page, for example, users can hide parts of the page they don't want to see, or even opt for a simple list view of all their most visited Web sites. In addition, Google has added handy tips to the bottom of the New Tab page to help users get the most out of Google Chrome.
Google said it has also improved the Omnibox. Because it is a search bar as well as the Web address bar, the multi-talented Omnibox helps users get to the sites they are looking for with just a few keystrokes. With this release, Google has optimized the presentation of the drop-down menu and added little icons to help users distinguish between suggested sites, searches, bookmarks and sites from their browsing history.
"We're very excited about HTML5 becoming standard in modern browsers, and continued to add HTML5 capabilities to this stable release. We're particularly excited about the <video> tag in HTML5, which makes embedding videos in a page as simple as embedding regular images. The <video> tag also allows video playback without a plug-in," said Laforge.
"You can give the >video> tag a whirl in Google Chrome and also check out our 50th Chrome Experiment, which uses HTML5 <audio> and <canvas> tags. It's great to see the great innovations that come from the use of open standards, and we'll continue to bring the latest and greatest in web technologies quickly to users through Google Chrome," added Laforge.
Google has also introduced Themes for Google Chrome in this stable release, after testing it out in the beta channel. Themes allow users to deck out their browser with colors, patterns and images. The company said it will be bringing more Themes for the browser soon, but in the meantime, users can change the theme of their browser by visiting the Themes Gallery.
Google said many of the improvements in this release were inspired by the responses from users. Google Chrome 3 can be downloaded from google.com/chrome.
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