Google Rolls Out Chrome Beta for Android

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 11 Jan 2013

As of this week there is a new Chrome release channel: the new Beta channel for Android. If you have a mobile device powered by Android 4.0 or newer, you can get to play with Chrome Beta and its new features.

As you may already know, Google rolls out Chrome updates to desktop users via several channels: Canary builds, the Dev channel, the Beta channel, and the Stable channel. Canary builds are rolled out at a daily rate, while updates via the Stable channel are rolled out every 6 weeks (approximately).

On the Android front, Google used to roll out Chrome updates via a single channel: the Stable one. As of this week this has changed – on Thursday, January 10th, Google rolled out the Beta channel for Android. This means that you can now use Chrome Beta on your Android-powered device, preview the latest features the Beta has to offer, and give early feedback that will help make Chrome Beta a better browser.

“Starting today, you can install Chrome Beta channel for phones and tablets on Android 4.0+ from Google Play. This release includes some of the biggest developer updates to Chrome for Android since its launch last year, bringing many features available on other Chrome versions to Android as well,” said Peter Beverloo, Software Engineer and Mobile Web Maestro.

One of the new features Chrome Beta for Android brings to the table is an updated and more powerful V8 engine. Based on the Octane benchmark, V8 version 3.15 is 25-30% faster. Now that is a significant speed boost.

Chrome Beta is available for download from Google’s Play Store here. Click the link, because you will not find Chrome Beta via the Play Store’s search function. Please note that you can run Chrome Beta alongside Chrome Stable. The Stable version is available for download here.



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