Google releases Chrome 23 -- get it NOW!

Google has announced the release of Chrome 23 to the stable channel, and it’s an interesting update, with some welcome developments.

New support for GPU-accelerated video decoding will reduce the load on your system’s CPU, for instance. And as GPU’s use less power than your primary processor, this can notably extend your battery life (Google’s own testing suggests you could see up to a 25-percent improvement).

Website permissions are now far more accessible, too. There’s no longer any need to go searching through the Settings dialog; just click the page icon in the address bar to see the current permission, then change them as you like.

And Chrome 23 also includes a new “do not track” option, although perhaps the more interesting issue here is that Google acknowledges that this isn’t always effective, and says the company is “working with others on a common way to respond to these requests in the future”.

Elsewhere, Chrome’s Dev channel has been updated to 24.0.1312.5 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome Frame.

This release is less interesting (at the moment, anyway), consisting mostly of bug fixes and minor optimisations. But if you’re interested in the fine details then the SVN revision log has more.

As usual, auto-updating should ensure you get the new releases as they appear, but if you don’t have the browser installed at the moment then full builds of Chrome 23 final and Chrome 24 Dev are also available now.