Today, Google has pushed three new features to the latest stable version of its Chrome browser. Instant Pages pre-renders certain pages in the background, like top search results or the ‘next page’ link in an article, when the software can reasonably predict that the user will go there next. A pre-rendered page will appear to load instantly.
Instant Pages builds on Google’s instant search results and previews to further reduce the time users spend finding what they’re looking for.
The update also launches print preview mode for Windows and Linux users, using Chrome’s built-in PDF viewer to load printable documents as naturally as Web pages. Finally, the new version of the omnibar – Chrome’s combined search and address bar – has navigation, suggestion and history enhancements.
Google’s aim with this new set of features is to reduce “barriers to knowledge” by making Web browsing faster and more efficient. Google uses this technology on its own Web pages, and it has made its page visibility API available for Web developers to build in pre-rendering themselves. These features don’t always translate into a great user experience; our community’s reaction to instant search results was a bit mixed. But instant page caching is a less obvious and more satisfying feature. Whereas Google’s Instant Search rapidly flashes changing results before your eyes as you type, Instant Pages just appear when you request them. That’s a whole new definition of browser speed.
