Articles about Chrome

Trouble looms ahead this month for Chrome, while Internet Explorer is poised for a growth surge. Behind this March Madness both browsers share something in common -- their ties to either Google or Microsoft products or services. Chrome will be penalized for one, while IE is set to gain from the other.

Chrome is one of the decade's stunning success stories, in part because of Google's rapid innovation that puts out a new version about every six weeks. But Google also benefits from ties to its other products and services, with search being high among them. Recent browser usage share growth reversals reveal just how much -- in January and February stats compiled by Net Applications.

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Hot on the heels of the final release of Chrome 17, Google has updated Chrome Beta to version 18. Its headline new feature is improved 2D graphics performance in HTML5 and a software rasterizer to enable older machines to display content rendered using newer, unsupported technologies such as WebGL.

Chrome 18 Beta also sees improvements to the PDF plug-in, plus fixes a number of issues such as full-screen performance under Windows and startup issues in Red Hat Enterprise 6.

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Chrome 17 entered the "stable" channel today, 33 days after going beta. Not coincidentally, the stable build follows Chrome for Android by one day. You'll want the one to get the full sync benefits of the other.

Google promises security improvements with the new release and something else: Faster page loading, as you type and in some cases barely before you start typing the address. Chrome essentially pre-renders websites, extending the search page pre-rendering already available. The feature is disturbing in practice -- a little too prescient, like mind reading, when it works.

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Yesterday, Google pulled the trigger and finally launched Chrome for Android in beta. It is undoubtedly one of the most significant app releases ever for the Android platform, but like other platforms, the browser market is a strange beast and BetaNews readers, of all people, should be acutely familiar with that fact.

If you do not own an Android device capable of running the Chrome Beta, you probably looked around at the reviews and got a general feeling for the new software and why it's "the platform's best new browser," or the native browser killer with an improved interface and simple tab handling. But none of these reviews really addressed the burning question:

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Finally, after a two-day delay, we have a winner for a shiny, new Galaxy Nexus smartphone. We asked you to offer 2012 New Year's resolutions for Google -- and you did, and some too late to qualify (you missed the deadline, sorry). Among the many on-time submissions, we chose 25 resolutions that Google should consider for the year ahead.

The resolutions aren't as broad as we expected and perhaps the prize is reason. More of you offered suggestions about Android than anything else. In the list below, some submitters appear more than one time, but they were only considered once in the prize drawing. We randomly chose from among all submitters meeting the deadline. In the interest of time -- and preparation for next week's Consumer Electronics Show -- we didn't check to see if all submitters met the other qualifications. We qualified the winner only and would have drawn another name had he failed to meet them (The two absolutely required with the resolution submission: Tweet the post and follow BetaNews on Twitter).

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Microsoft and Mozilla simply couldn't ask for a better situation. At a time when usage share for their respective browsers sinks, the world's No. 1 search engine has effectively stripped up-and-comer Chrome from meaningful search ranking. Google demoted Chrome, following a sponsored-link scandal that violates its own policies about paid links. If you Google "browsers" today, unlike yesterday, Chrome won't appear among top results and is buried pages below.

From one perspective, Google did the right thing, treating itself and its own product like any of its search customers. Throughout 2011, Google was on a tear to purify search rankings of shenanigans like this one. But from another viewpoint, Google had no other choice. Its business is about trust, and the company can't be doing what it prohibits others from doing. Then there's that pesky antitrust investigation and allegations Google favors its own stuff in searches.

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Google has updated its web browser, Google Chrome, to version 15. As expected, changes are evolutionary rather than revolutionary, and some features that were present in the beta version have yet to be migrated across to this stable release.

The only notable change is an extremely visible one: a redesigned new tab/window page. This splits apps, bookmarks and most visited sites into separate sections, accessible via a series of buttons at the bottom of the page. There’s also a Recently Closed page, making it easier for users to open the window of their choice.

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To accompany the new stable version of the Chrome browser Tuesday, Google updated its Chrome App Store Apps with a new look and new interface.

The new App Store is marked by big images for the featured apps and extensions, that users need only to hover over to reveal a short review, user rating, and "add to Chrome" button. A left-hand navigation panel contains the store's search feature, and lists of popular apps and extensions, collections, and categories.

Individual pages for apps and extensions have been updated as well with a tabbed interface that breaks the app up into Overview, details, and reviews. The reviews interface now links to a user's real identity with their Google+ profile.

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One week after releasing the first stable build of Google Chrome 14, both Beta and Dev channels have been updated, to versions 15 and 16 respectively. In terms of new features, Google Chrome 15 Beta sees the most radical developments with a redesigned new tab page and the ability to synchronize the Address/Search bar history across multiple installations.

Google Chrome 16 Dev offers one interesting new development in the fact that multi-user support, where users log into a single instance of Chrome with different accounts, has now been enabled by default on Windows and Mac machines.

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Friday, Google rolled out the stable build of Google Chrome 14 (14.0.835.163) for all platforms, a more or less market-ready version of the beta channel release from August.

With this release, Google is highlighting two technologies that Chrome now supports; and fortunately, they're quite shiny and easy to appreciate.

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