Go To Latest Video ReviewsGoogle Chrome Gets Themes & 30% Speed Boost
| Author | Gordon Kelly |
| Published | 6th Aug 2009 |
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TrustedReviews NewslettersChrome may have long battled fellow Webkit based rival Safari 4 for the title of Most Blazingly Fast Crazy Speed Demon Browser for some time now, but suddenly it has taken a clear lead while adding *whisper it* customisation...
These leaps come with beta version 3.0.195.4 of Chrome which was released today and it brings a claimed 30 per cent boost in V8 and SunSpider benchmarks over v2.0 - its 'stable' channel release counterpart. By way of context, industry testing puts this at about double the speed of Firefox 3.5 and around 8x faster than IE8.
Perhaps more interesting for non-speed junkies are some design and functionality overhauls. Immediately obviously will be the redesigned new tab page, which allows users to pin their favourite sites to the 'Most visited' slots and collapse information they don't want displayed. The Omnibox (url/google search bar) also gets a spit and polish to offer Firefox-esque drop down suggestions as you type, while basic downloadable themes have been added to Chrome ahead of its much anticipated third party extensions.
Chrome 3.0.195.4 also brings the first HTML5 capabilities and better multitasking with new links now able to be clicked on a page while it is still loading (something of a major omission previously).
All in all, well worth the download...
Links:
Google Blog Announcement
Google Chrome Beta & Developer Edition
Google Chrome Themes
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Gordon said on 6th August 2009
xbrumster said on 6th August 2009
it doesnt take Gg very long to progress Chrome to near 3.x considering it has only been on the market for a few month...
Ron said on 7th August 2009
Come on Google - let's have a version for the Mac - it's the one thing I miss since switching from a PC.
Pbryanw said on 7th August 2009
@Ron - If you're not bothered about running developer versions, you can get an official Chrome build for Mac from:
http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/eula_dev... more
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@TheEvilGenius Chrome v2.x is not beta, version 3.0 is beta currently.