Article by George Norman

On 06 Sep 2010

I think I speak for everyone when I say that we all eagerly await each and every weekend. It is the time of the week when we don’t have to get up early in the morning, don’t have to face the traffic to get to and back from work, and we can meet up with friends and party.

The development team behind the Chrome browser certainly had some serious reasons to party this weekend - two reasons to be more precise. The first one is that last week the Google-developed web browser celebrated its 2nd anniversary. The second anniversary of the release of the first beta version of Chrome.

“Looking back on Chrome’s second anniversary, it’s amazing to see how much has changed in just a short time. In August 2008, JavaScript was 10 times slower, HTML5 support wasn’t yet an essential feature in modern browsers, and the idea of a sandboxed, multi-process browser was only a research project. All browsers have come a long way in the last two years and the web has become much more fun and useful,” commented Product Manager Brian Rakowski.


The second reason the Chrome team had to celebrate is Chrome 6.0 graduated to the stable channel. In the 2 years since Chrome has been launched, it has already reached version 6.0. Right now Google’s stable channel serves Chrome version 6.0.472.53 for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

If you would like to get chrome 6.0 you can get the browser straight from Google here. But before you get the browser, perhaps you would like to know what it has to offer. Here’s the lowdown:

• Speed

Suffice it to say that the stable version of Chrome 6.0 is the fastest version to date. But if you wanst specifics, here they are. Ever since Chrome 6.0 was in Beta, it scored a 15% speed improvement on the V8 benchmark, and a 15% improvement on the SunSpider benchmark, compared to the previous Beta version.

Compared to the first Chrome version Google rolled out 2 years ago, Chrome 6.0 is three times faster on JavaScript performance.

• A better looking interface

Chrome’s user interface (UI) has been tweaked a bit: the upper toolbar has been streamlined, the Omnibox is more approachable, abd all four options have been condensed into one menu. The "Go" button is gone and so is the "http" part in the address bar.

"We took the already minimalist user interface and stripped it down a bit more to make it easier to use. We combined Chrome’s two menus into one, revisited the location of the buttons, cleaned up the treatment of the URL and the Omnibox, and adjusted the color scheme of the browser to be easier on the eyes," explained Brian Rakowski.

• Synchronization capabilities

With Chrome you can keep your bookmarks, preferences, themes, extensions and Autofill data in sync.

• Form Autofill

This feature makes it easier to fill in web forms – Autofill stores information such as your name, address, phone number, and the credit card number you use for shopping online and automatically fills in web forms. With just a few clicks you can easily fill in web forms.

It must be mentioned that all the data Chrome stores is kept private until the user chooses to share this information with a website. It must also be mentioned that Chrome never saves credit card info without first asking the user explicitly. The sync feature mentioned above keeps Autofill information in sync – everything but credit card info.

• Other changes

- WebM videos are supported
- A new shortcut for toggling the bookmarks bar: Ctrl + Shift + B.
- Place the cursor over a link (a long URL) and in about 3 seconds chrome will show the entire URL.
- The extension manager links to the extension gallery page.
- 17 security fixes.



Tags: Google, Chrome

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