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