Chrome Turns 2, New Version Launches To Celebrate

Looking in the rear view, there's no question, technology has evolved in a huge way since 2008 and few areas have evolved as much as the Web browser space. The competition has heated up in a big, big way. Microsoft has found themselves lagging behind in terms of features and flexibility, Firefox's popularity has grown, Safari has picked up extensions support, and Google's Chrome has entered the fold. 

It was obvious that the search engine giant would bring a solid product to market and there are many solid alternatives now to Internet Explorer.


This week marks the two year anniversary (or birthday, if you'd prefer) of Chrome, and even that browser has changed a lot (for the better) since 2008. In order to celebrate 2 years, Google is releasing a new stable version (Chrome 6) that's even faster and more streamlined than prior versions. Chrome is now three times faster than it was two years ago on JavaScript performance, and the UI has been stripped down a bit more to make browsing even simpler.


Life on the web, in the browser.
(Illustration:
Jack Hudson, click image to expand)


Google has also promised that they won't be taking too long a break to celebrate. The next edition of Chrome is already underway, promising to be even faster when it's released in the future. Are you a Chrome convert? Would you consider trying it out now that it's had two years to mature?