Google Launches New Chrome Beta

Google has announced the newest beta release of Google Chrome, its Web browser.

This beta has been released, this week, with the intention of drawing feedback on its new features, the company claims.

Since Chrome initially rolled out in September 2008, Google has strived to make its Web browser unique in the market, including features such as Google Gears, a hybrid search address bar.

Seven months and 29 updates later, Google claims that this new beta version is nearly twice as fast as the original beta version. Although the company removed the “beta” designation from Chrome in December, it’s reattached the label “for some early feedback,” according to the newly launched Google Chrome Blog.

“The first thing you might notice about this new beta is the speed improvement, but you’ll also find additional browsing tools,” Brian Rakowski, product manager for Google Chrome, wrote in a posting on the official Google blog, “such as basic form autofill, full page zoom, support for autoscroll, and a new way to drag tabs into side-by-side view.”

“If you’re already using Google Chrome and choose to install the new beta, you will update and replace the current version on your desktop,” Rakowski added. “Otherwise, you can just keep on using the stable version.”

News has been heating up on the browser-wars front. On 13 March, Mozilla released its Firefox 3.1 beta 3 Web browser, also for evaluation and feedback. That version of Firefox claimed increased stability and support for new Web technologies.

Recent studies have also been alternately claiming that various browsers, ranging from Internet Explorer 8 to Google Chrome, Firefox, Apple Safari and Opera are the fastest currently available – somewhat of a moot point to most end-users when differences in performance are now measured in milliseconds.