Chrome brings back beta

 

Gallery

By Stuart Turton

Posted on 18 Mar 2009 at 08:32

Google has introduced a new beta version of Chrome which it claims is considerably quicker than the original across the board.

The web giant surprised everybody back in December by ditching Chrome's beta tag, a move designed to speed adoption by beta-wary businesses.

However, the company has now reintroduced an experimental version of the browser bearing the beta tag, which will sit alongside the stable and developer releases.

Google claims this new version is "25% faster on our V8 benchmark and 35% faster on the Sunspider benchmark than the current stable channel version".

Aside from shaving microseconds off your page load times, the latest version of Chrome also includes automatic form-filling, full-page zoom, auto-scroll, and the ability to view pages side-by-side with a simple tab drag and drop.

Google is promising that those who get involved with the beta will receive all the cutting edge improvements to their browser as they become available, while it maintains the stable release for the stay-at-home browser types: "Getting on the beta channel means your version of Google Chrome will regularly get updated with new speed enhancements, features, and bug fixes before most users see them," notes Google product manager Brian Rakowski on the new Chrome blog.

"We're doing our best to quickly churn out new features as they are available rather than saving them up for occasional major releases. Riding the beta channel is a great way to let us know about what's working and what's not, but don't be surprised to find some rough edges."