Google Chrome Gets Speed Improvements

by Jennifer Johnson — Monday, May 25, 2009, 08:33 AM EDT

Google launched its Chrome browser about eight months ago. Since the browser was released, Google has been receiving quite a bit of feedback and feature requests. The company has responded to some of those requests by adding new features and increasing its focus on speed. Some of the new improvements suggested from users made it into the beta version that was released in March. Since then, Google has continued to improve the beta.

Now, Google has moved the beta version of the browser to the stable channel for all users to enjoy. Some of the most notable improvements include a new and improved tab page, Full Screen Mode, and Form Autofill feature. Now, you’ll be able to remove thumbnails from the New Tab page and hide an embarrassing site from the Most Visited section.

A new Full Screen Mode will be useful to presenters and movie buffs since it lets you use every pixel on your screen for content. This new feature lets you hide the title bar and the rest of the browser by pressing F11 or by selecting the option in the Tools menu.

A new Form Autofill feature makes it easy to fill out forms by showing information you’ve previously entered into the same types of form fields automatically. If you don’t like the suggestions that appear, you can always clear this information from the Tools menu.

Other new features that may not be quite as visible include increased stability and increased speed. Google has fixed over 300 bugs that have caused crashes since launch. In addition, the new Chrome browser uses a new version of WebKit and a new version of V8, Google’s JavaScript engine, to help make interactive web pages load even more quickly.

The latest version of Chrome will be referred to as Chrome 2. The company says this name is mainly a metric to help them keep track of changes internally and says it doesn’t give much weight to version numbers.

Current Google Chrome users will be updated to the new version soon. If you want to try it right away, you can get the latest version at google.com/chrome.

Find out more about the improvements in Google Chrome 2 by watching the demo video below:

Tags: Chrome, Google, web browsers

Jennifer Johnson

Jennifer grew up around technology. From an early age, she was curious about all things related to computers. As a child, Jennifer remembers spending nights with her dad programming in BASIC and taking apart hard drives to see what was inside. In high school, she wrote her senior term paper on her experiences with building custom computers.

Jennifer graduated from the Jeffrey S. Raikes School of Computer Science and Management at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. After college, she began writing full-time for various PC and technology magazines. Later, she transitioned to the Web. In these roles, Jennifer has covered a variety of topics including laptops, desktops, smartphones, cameras, tablets, and various consumer electronics devices. When she's not playing with or writing about the latest gadget, Jennifer loves to spend time with her family, capture memories with her camera, and scrapbook.

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