A new Chrome stable release: Welcome, Mac and Linux!

In our most recent beta release, we fired up all engines to bring to life our fastest version of Chrome to date.

Today, we’re bringing all this beta goodness to the stable channel so that it’s available to all Chrome users. We’re particularly excited to bring Chrome for Mac and Linux out of beta, and introduce Chrome’s first stable release for Mac and Linux users. You can read more about the Mac and Linux stable releases on the Google Mac and Chromium blogs respectively.

Today’s stable release also comes with a host of new features. You’ll be able to synchronize not only bookmarks across multiple computers, but also browser preferences -- including themes, homepage and startup settings, web content settings, preferred languages, and even page zoom settings. Meanwhile, for avid extensions users, you can enable each extension to work in incognito mode through the extensions manager.

Our stable release also incorporates HTML5 features such as Geolocation APIs, App Cache, web sockets, and file drag-and-drop. 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. We’ve also given Chrome’s bookmark manager a facelift with HTML5:



In recent weeks, we’ve been beta-testing Adobe Flash Player integration into Chrome. While Flash Player integration in the browser is not included by default in today’s stable release, we’re excited to enable this feature with the full release of Flash Player (version 10.1) soon.

If you’re already using Chrome for Windows, Mac or Linux, you’ll be auto-updated to this latest release soon. You can also try out these new features on our speedy browser now, by downloading Chrome from google.com/chrome.


Posted by Brian Rakowski, Product Manager

Six ways to find the right Chrome Extension for you

With so many Chrome extensions to choose from, exploring the extensions gallery has been like a treasure hunt for me. Over the last few months, I've spent hours checking out new extensions and discovering cool ways to keep up with the latest news or find better deals online. I'd like to share with you some useful extensions that I came across in six easy-to-use pages for web development, blogging, shopping, sports, fun and Google applications.

I always love finding a bargain online. For all of you who also like to shop smart, these extensions can make online online shopping faster and easier. You can track an item's price history with the Camelizer extension or complement your bargain hunting with extensions from Amazon, Woot! and eBay.

We also have extensions dedicated to fans of sports from around the world. You can track live scores and commentary on cricket, rugby and Formula 1 with extensions from ESPN. If you want an edge in your fantasy sports leagues, the Pickemfirst extension brings you news, game statistics and commentary of pro sports players currently displayed in your browser.

Besides sports and shopping, these blogging extensions can help you write better blog posts and share web content more efficiently. You can quickly post to your blogs at TypePad or Blogger. You can also get contextual suggestions of related articles, images, links and tags with Zemanta. After the Deadline offers an extension that automatically checks your spelling and grammar (while optionally checking for cliches and double negatives!)

In addition, we made it easier to find the extensions for Google applications you frequently use. These include extensions to preview Google Docs or to check your Google Calendar directly from your Google Chrome browser.

For those of you who want to complement Google Chrome's developer tools to create a customized development environment in Chrome, there are web development extensions such as viewing PHP documentation, creating random dummy text or testing your page at various resolutions.

Finally, if you want to play a prank on your co-workers or take a 5-minute break with a game, there are quite a few fun extensions to brighten up your day.

I hope you enjoy these pages. There are more than 4,000 extensions waiting to be discovered in the gallery. Happy hunting!

Posted by Koh Kim, Associate Product Marketing Manager

Potato gun, lightning, and sonic magic: Unconventional speed tests for the browser

Yesterday, we released a new beta for Chrome, and teamed up with a few creative minds to bring Chrome’s speed to life with an early preview of a series of fun, unconventional speed tests for the browser. As promised in my blogpost, here’s a follow-up video of the full results!



(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).

Posted by Mads Ager, Software Engineer

Pedal to the Chrome metal: Our fastest beta to date for Windows, Mac and Linux

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.

To try out all these new features, download Chrome on the Windows beta channel, or download the Mac or Linux betas.

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.


Posted by Mads Ager, Software Engineer

Keeping Track of the World with Chrome Extensions

In recent weeks, we saw not only breaking news, but erupting, stunning and unveiling news! To keep myself from drowning in the news flood, I found that using a few Chrome extensions can help me keep track of it all.

If you're a media enthusiast like I am, there are many Chrome extensions that can help you stay on top of your favorite media sites. With the Financial Times extension, you can quickly browse the financial and economic headlines. At the same time, you can keep up with the latest in politics and art with the NPR extension. A neat feature is that you can also listen to episodes of "All Songs Considered" and other NPR programs. Fan of cricket, Formula 1, or rugby? ESPN has extensions that give you one-click access to top headlines and live scores while you browse the web.



For those who prefer using Google Reader to manage your news feeds, you can quickly preview subscriptions in a pop-up using the Google Reader Notifier extension. Interested in a particular story? You can open your Google Reader in a new tab or go directly to the article.

Sometimes I want to see all of my content in one, easily accessible page. Feedly organizes your content from your favorite sites and services such as Google Reader, Twitter and Flickr into a stylish, magazine-like start page.

These are just a few extensions to help you stay in the know, and you can find many more in the Chrome extensions gallery. You can also check out this video to see some other features you can add to your browser.



Posted by Koh Kim, Associate Product Marketing Manager

Tip: Going Undercover

Sometimes you don't want to leave traces on your computer of some site you visit. Google Chrome's incognito windows are made just for this. Visit a website in an incognito window, and when you close the window, the browser has no record of you having been there.


Of course, you probably knew that. What you might not have known is that you don't have to use the Tools menu in the upper corner of the window to get an incognito window. Just hit ctrl-shift-n, and one will pop right up. (And it's command + shift + N on a Mac.)


If there's a particular link you want to open in incognito mode, you can right click the link and select "Open link in incognito window", and you'll navigate to it without leaving any tracks.


Posted by Peter Kasting, Software Engineer

Unmuting the web with Google Chrome

We’ve long felt that not enough people know what a browser is. Too many people just use the browser that comes with their computer. The time has come for browsers to speak up and be heard. Even though we’ve experimented with visual improvements in the way of 3D stereoscopy, we think it’s time for browsers to push the boundaries of what’s possible by using sound to create a magical, immersive experience.

Taking an earful of inspiration from the HTML5 audio tag, we’ve spent the past few months deep in psychoacoustic models, the Whittaker-Nyquist-Kotelnikov-Shannon sampling theorem, Franssen effects, Shepard-Risset Tones, and 11.1 surround sound research to build a cutting-edge audio-driven user interface for our users, available through a new Chrome extension. With this extension, Chrome will provide audio feedback as you browse to web pages and interact with the browser.

To experience the web with auditory feedback, download Google Chrome (if you haven’t already), install the extension, turn up the volume, and enjoy the biggest increase in your browsing productivity since the blink tag. Mundane operations like opening and closing tabs, searching, navigating, even debugging the browser and much more will never be the same.

Now that we’ve nailed sight and sound, we’ll look at bringing olfactory magic to the browsing experience. We hope to deliver that by next year at this time.

Posted by Kay, Rakowski, and Chan from the Psychoacoustics Research Division of the Google Chrome Team