Chrome continues to make gains on both Internet Explorer and Firefox and we have to figure that it is partly a result of the types of features we’re seeing frequently added to Google’s entry into the browser market.
Today’s beta release boasts more than just speed increases, included a number of nifty features.
According to Google, Chrome has improved benchmarks by 30% and 35% using the V8 and SunSpider benchmarks since the last beta release, and 213% and 305% since the initial beta release in September 2008.
Beyond speed, which has always been a focal point of Chrome, the browser has added several features, which helps it compete with the more feature-rich but often bulkier and slower Firefox. Chrome recently added bookmark synchronization and today it adds browser preference synchronization. Browser preference synchronization brings themes, homepage and startups settings, web content settings and language settings, storing all of this in your Google account. And if you’re not able to use Chrome where you are, you can access your bookmarks from within Google Docs.
Chrome will also allow you to install and use Chrome extensions while browsing the Web in incognito mode, a feature that was apparently highly requested according to the blog. This means that any of those Greasemonkey extensions or whatever else you might have don’t need to sit unused if you feel like keeping your browsing private.
In addition to these features, the new beta release includes a number of new HTML5 features, as well as native Flash support. Chrome is the first browser to offer and out-of-the-box integration for Adobe Flash and brings an auto-update mechanism to the table.
As Avast CEO Vincent Steckler told us last January when we spoke with him about browser security, one of the biggest issues is users not updating software like browsers and flash, so this auto-update feature should do a bit to keep its users secure.
The new beta version of Chrome is available for Windows, Mac and Linux.
